The United Kingdom and Germany, with fighter jets, intercepted two Russian planes that were flying near Estonia late on Tuesday.
The Russian plane, an Il-78 Midas refueling plane, and an Antonov-148 military transport aircraft approached NATO airspace without contacting the Estonian authorities.
This is the first time that the United Kingdom and Germany have conducted a joint air interception as part of the NATO treaty, according to the American Fox News
NATO continues to form the bedrock of our collective security. This joint deployment by the UK and Germany to the Baltics demonstrates our collective resolve to challenge any potential threat to NATO’s borders while demonstrating our combined strength,” UK Armed Forces Secretary James Heppey said in a statement.
The incident came just hours after two Russian jets shot down a $32 million US drone over the Black Sea, with the two jets harassing the drone for several minutes before cutting off the drone’s propeller.
The US-European Joint Command statement said, “At approximately 7:03 a.m. (CET), one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft hit the propeller of the MQ-9 drone, prompting US forces to shoot it down in international waters.
Before the collision, the Sukhoi Su-27 jets dumped fuel on the American drone and flew in front of it in a reckless, environmentally unsound, and unprofessional manner.
This incident demonstrates incompetence as well as being unsafe and unprofessional. “This incident follows a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots while interacting with US and allied aircraft over international airspace, including over the Black Sea. These aggressive actions by Russian aircrews are dangerous and can lead to miscalculation,” the statement continued. Unintended escalation
The United States says the drone was conducting routine operations in international airspace at the time of the crash.
A US State Department spokesman, Ned Price, confirmed to reporters that the State Department summoned the Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, to express its “strong objections” to the interception process.
