NATO air policing

NATO's Baltic air policing mission is being downsized alongside reinforcements in other security elements in the Baltic region and therefore is not significant, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė says.

Now is a bad time to reduce the number of fighter jets stationed in the Baltic states as part of NATO's air policing mission, Lithuania's Deputy Minister of National Defence Marijus Velička says.

NATO's leadership decided to downsize the Baltic air policing mission in order to make rational use of resources, but Lithuania should not applaud it, as it reduces the Alliance's visibility, says political scientist Gražvydas Jasutis. Meanwhile his colleague Kęstutis Girnius believes that the reinf...

Lithuania's Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius has downplayed NATO's plans to reduce the air policing mission in the Baltic states, saying that eight fighter-jets are perfectly sufficient for efficient protection of the air-space. In his words, rotations are planned for the coming five years.

NATO's decision to downsize the air policing mission by half will not affect the security of the three Baltic states, says Lithuania's Defence Minister Juozas Olekas.

NATO will downsize the air policing mission in the Baltic states by half, with eight fighter-jets due to patrol the skies as of September, as compared with the current 16 jets, as well as one contingent left in Lithuania instead of the current two, the Alliance's spokesman confirmed on Tuesday.

NATO fighter jets, stationed in the Lithuanian northern city of Šiauliai as part of the Baltic air policing mission, performed five scrambles last week to intercept Russian military planes over the Baltic Sea.

NATO fighter jets, stationed in Lithuania as part of NATO's Baltic air policing mission, were scrambled three times on Wednesday to identify and accompany Russian planes flying over the Baltic Sea.

NATO air policing fighter jets were scrambled from Šiauliai, northern Lithuania, on Tuesday to identify a Russian military strategic transport airplane flying above the Baltic Sea.

NATO fighter-jets serving in the Baltic air-policing mission were scrambled seven times last week over Russian aircrafts.

NATO fighter jets stationed in the Lithuanian northern city of Šiauliai as part of the Baltic air policing mission were on Tuesday scrambled to identify a Russian reconnaissance plane Il-20 flying in the international space.

NATO fighter-jets serving in the air policing mission were scrambled once from Lithuania last week to identify a Russian warplane flying above the Baltic Sea.

NATO Baltic air policing fighter jets were scrambled once last week to intercept and accompany a Russia plane flying over the Baltic Sea, according to Lithuania's Ministry of National Defence.

One month after a small Lithuanian aircraft, An-2, crashed into the Baltic Sea on 16 May, the public still knows very little about what happened and why. If officials in charge of the investigation know more, they keep it to themselves.

NATO fighter jets protecting the Baltic airspace were scrambled twice last week to intercept and escort two Russian planes flying in the international airspace over the Baltic Sea with their onboard transponders switched off.

Lithuanian Minister of National Defence Juozas Olekas met with is Norwegian counterpart Ine Eriksen Soereide and invited Norway to deploy a back-up contingent for the Baltic air policing mission in Lithuania in 2016.

Last week NATO fighter jets protecting the Baltic airspace were scrambled ten times to intercept military aircraft of the Russian Federation in international airspace on the way to or from mainland Russia and to the Russian region of Kaliningrad.

NATO fighter jets, stationed in Lithuania's northern city of Šiauliai, were on Monday scrambled to identify a Russian military reconnaissance plane that was flying with its transponder switched off.

NATO fighter-jets stationed in Šiauliai, northern Lithuania, were scrambled on Tuesday to identify a Russian reconnaissance airplane flying above the Baltic Sea with its automatic transponder switched off.

NATO fighter jets, stationed in Lithuania and Estonia as part of the Alliance's Baltic air policing missions, were on Monday scrambled to identify three Russian military planes flying over the Baltic Sea, with two of them flying with their transponders switched off.