Fighter jets from the German and British air forces have been mobilized to intercept a Russian plane near Estonian airspace, the UK Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday.
The two countries are conducting joint police missions in Estonian airspace as part of NATO efforts to bolster security on its eastern flank in response to Russia.
Typhoon fighter jets responded on Tuesday after a Russian refueling plane failed to communicate with Estonian air traffic control, the British ministry said.
The Russian plane did not enter the airspace of Estonia, a NATO member state.
Germany and the United Kingdom are part of the NATO air surveillance mission in the Baltic until the end of April.
“It was great to see the UK and German elements operating as a team,” British Air Force Commander Scott Maccoll said.
“This joint UK-German mission clearly demonstrates our collective determination to challenge any potential threat to NATO’s borders by demonstrating our combined strength,” said UK Armed Forces Minister James Heappey. .
These interceptions are routine, even before Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, with NATO aircraft involved in around 400 interceptions a year involving Russian planes.
But this new incident comes in a context of great tension after the collision of a Russian combat plane with an American ‘drone’ (unmanned aerial device) that self-destructed in the Black Sea on Tuesday.
Washington and Moscow presented different versions of what happened.
The United States affirmed that the Russian plane hit a propeller of the ‘drone’, while Russia defended that the device crashed after a “sudden maneuver”.
“The incident with the US MQ-9 Reaper drone, provoked by Russia in the Black Sea, is a sign of [que o Presidente russo, Vladimir]Putin is ready to expand the conflict zone and involve other parties”, said the secretary of the Security Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, in a message released today through the social network Twitter.
It was the first time since the Cold War that a US plane had been shot down after an encounter with a Russian warplane, a situation that highlighted the risk of confrontation between Russia and the West in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The Russian military offensive on Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: TSF
