Lithuania
says Russian incursions into the airspace of countries in the Baltics
has increased 14 percent.
A typhoon fighter of Britain's Royal Air Force (bottom) intercepts a Russian Air Force plane off the coast of Lithuania. RAF photo |
The Lithuanian
Ministry of Defense said the number of interceptions in 2015 were a
14 percent rise from the previous year.
"The number
of times jets were scrambled last year was up on the 140 occasions in
2014," the ministry said. "Russian military aircraft
activity over the Baltic Sea has significantly increased since 2014
amid a heightening of tensions between Moscow and Western countries
over Russia's annexation of the Crimea and its support for
separatists in eastern Ukraine."
NATO's Baltic
members -- Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia -- have no air forces of
their own. Other NATO countries fill the defense vacuum by sending
aircraft in rotating four-month deployments to the region. Aircraft
from Spain and Belgium take up station in the Baltics this week,
relieving those from Hungary and Germany.
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