On Christmas Day, which falls on a Sunday this year and is a day when Turkish fighter jets rarely take off, three Turkish F-16s engaged in 11 violations of Greek national airspace.
In recent weeks, Turkey has undertaken a flurry of overflights, including on the Greek islands, continuing its hours-long flights with drones, which no longer fly only near the Turkish coast but in many cases reach the heart of the Aegean Sea.
As 2022 approaches, data shows an unprecedented record of Turkish violations against Greek airspace, by fighter jets and drones. More than 11,000 offenses have been registered this year.
Suffice it to say that in 2020, the year of the great crisis in which Greece and Turkey were on the verge of conflict in the Aegean Sea, “only” 4,605 rapes were recorded, not even half compared to this year’s unprecedented situation.
Considering that about a decade ago, in 2013, there were only 577 rapes and they rose to 1,783 in 2019 when Ankara first unveiled the vision of the “blue homeland”.
The increase in the use of Bayraktar and Anka drones in Ankara in recent years has made a big contribution because they offer cost-effective options. They fly for many hours over the Aegean Sea, between the Greek islands or even above them, hovering above them.
And when Turkey wants to escalate tensions further, it also takes off from fighter jets, as it has done in exactly the same role in recent days.
A total of 2,713 Turkish aircraft, whether F-16 and F-4 fighters, CN-235 and ATR-72 for naval cooperation, or Anka and Bayraktar drones, flew over the Aegean Sea in 2022.
Whenever Greek radar detects an unknown trace of a violation of the Athens FIR, as well as the national airspace within 10 miles of the Greek coast, the aviation is forced to take off.
Calculations show that the economic cost for the Air Force is enormous because the cost of an hour’s flight on an F-16 or Mirage 2000-5 fighter now exceeds 10,000 euros and as long as the energy crisis lasts it is constantly increasing.
