Russian military aircraft near the Baltic Sea were intercepted by NATO jets 110 times in 2016.
The number of intercepts was lower than the 160 recorded in 2015 and the 140 in 2014, Lithuania’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement to Baltic news agency BNS. NATO has confirmed these figures to Newsweek.
However, this greatly exceeds the number of aerial encounters above the Baltic Sea before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014; in 2013, NATO jets intercepted Russian aircraft 43 times.
Major General Thierry Dupont, commander of NATO’s Combined Air Operations Center, says that the number of intercepts has increased …read more
Source: Newsweek
