More than ten Russian military jets of the Baltic Sea Fleet, including Su-27s and Su-30SMs, conducted an exercise in the sky above Kaliningrad today
to simulate the interception and destruction of conventional enemy targets.
This was announced by the press service of the fleet quoted by the Tass agency.
The news comes after
British Royal Air Force (RAF) and German Air Force fighter jets intercepted a Russian military plane over Estonian airspace
, according to the BBC, which does not cite sources.
The Russian aircraft, a four-engine Ilyushin Il-78 Midas transport and aerial refueling aircraft, was flying between the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, and passed over Estonian airspace, over the Baltic, without announcing its handover to air control of Tallinn.
The two planes that intercepted it, two Typhoons that took off for the occasion, one German, the other British, escorted the Il-78 out of Estonian space.
ANSA Agency
Tajani, prudence is needed to avoid the NATO-Russia confrontation
"The risk in a moment of great tension is that due to human error there could be an accident that causes an escalation. This is why great prudence is needed for those engaged on NATO borders, but also with regard to Russian pilots
Meanwhile, tension remains very high after a Russian jet intercepts and damages an American spy drone, which is forced to crash in the Black Sea. The incident, the first of its kind since war broke out in Ukraine over a year ago, risks raising the risk of an expansion of the conflict, despite all of Joe Biden's efforts not to get dragged into a Third World War scenario: a mistake or a badly calculated maneuver is enough to ignite the spiral of retaliation, with the specter of an open confrontation between the two nuclear powers.
Russia has asked the US to put an end to what it calls "unacceptable military activities near Russia's borders", according to the
Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency.
"We all know - Antonov added - what these unmanned aircraft reconnaissance are for
. That is, to gather intelligence information which Ukraine then uses to strike Russia".
Moscow therefore expects Washington to "put an end to flights
near Russian borders", which it defines as "hostile".
ANSA Agency
The Russian ambassador, we don't want confrontation with the USA
Russia does not want a "clash" with the United States: Russian ambassador in Washington Anatoly Antonov told reporters, after being summoned to the US State Department over the incident between a Moscow jet and a US drone.
(HANDLE)
Antonov, summoned by the assistant secretary of state for European affairs Karem Donfried, however reiterated that Russia does not want a "clash" with the United States, noting however that "as we see it, American planes should not be near on the Russian border".
“Can you imagine if such a drone suddenly appeared near New York or San Francisco?” he asked, even though the crash happened in international airspace.
The tension was further fueled directly by Vladimir Putin, who defined the conflict in Ukraine "a war for the very survival of the Russian state" and relaunched the accusations against the US for the sabotage of the Nordstream gas pipeline.
According to the Pentagon's version, around 7 in the morning in Italy two Russian Su-27 fighters intercepted an American MQ-9 'Reaper' surveillance drone and one of them hit its propeller, causing it to crash into the Black Sea. Several times before the collision, the two jets flew dangerously in front of the drone and also dumped fuel on it, possibly in an attempt to damage or blind it.
"Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and struck by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and the complete loss of the drone," said US Air Force General James Hecker. , which oversees US Air in the region.
"This dangerous and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash," he added.
Moscow's version is different, according to which its jets took off because the drone was flying with the transponders turned off towards the Russian border but they did not use weapons or make contact: "Following abrupt manoeuvres, the air vehicle without MQ-9 pilot went into uncontrolled flight with loss of altitude and collided with the surface of the
The Biden administration, while condemning the episode and summoning the Russian ambassador to protest, seemed to throw water on the fire, framing the incident for now as a reckless interception.
The reconnaissance mission of the MQ-9 unmanned aircraft over the Black Sea was a provocation, said the Russian ambassador to the United States.
In a telephone briefing, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby recalled that it is not unusual for the US and Russia to have high-altitude aerial confrontations against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.
"There have been other similar intercepts, although this one is notable because it was dangerous and unprofessional and resulted in the downing of a US aircraft, so it's unique in that regard," Kirby said, after reporting that the commander in chief, Joe Biden, was immediately informed of the episode.
"We don't know what the Russian intention was, but if the message was to exercise deterrence against our overflights in international airspace over the Black Sea it is bound to fail," he warned.
Before the incident, however, the tsar had sent a couple of messages to the West.
The first is that Russia is fighting for the "survival" of its "statehood" in Ukraine, after the West began its pressure following the collapse of the USSR.
And it is no secret that Russian nuclear doctrine provides for the use of atomic weapons in case of "existential" threats to the country.
The second is that he doesn't believe the US intelligence-accredited version of Nord Stream being sabotaged by Ukrainian activists: "It's utter nonsense.