NATO Jets Monitor Russian Plane Over Baltic, Latvia Says

   (Bloomberg) --- NATO fighter jets intercepted a Russian IL-20 surveillance plane over the Baltic Sea

today, as the military alliance’s general secretary Jens Stoltenberg was completing a visit to the Baltic countries.

   The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s F-16 fighter planes confronted the military aircraft over neutral waters near Latvia, the Baltic country’s armed forces said on Twitter.

   The encounter adds to a surge of interceptions that have taken place amid growing strains between Russia and NATO over the conflict in Ukraine. The alliance dispatched jets 400 times this year to meet Russian military planes near the airspace of member states, a 50 percent increase on 2013, Stoltenberg said yesterday while visiting Latvia.

   NATO responses to Russian aircraft over the Baltic more than doubled in 2014 from last year, rising to 112, the news service BNS reported Nov. 19, citing Lithuania’s Defense Ministry. That compares with 47 such incidents in 2013 and 44 in 2012.

   NATO fighters repeatedly confronting Russian warplanes near the alliance’s borders is nothing to worry about, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in a Nov. 15 interview to Bloomberg.