throughout European airspace in recent days has raised alarm bells for NATO officials that come amid other provocations already rattling the West.
Multiple groups of
Russian military bomber and tanker aircraft, flying under the guise of
military maneuvers, were detected and monitored over sections of the
Baltic Sea, North Sea and Black Sea on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Those flights represented an "unusual level of air activity over European airspace," according to a press release from NATO.
Adding to the concern --
none of the Russian aircraft filed customary flight plans or maintained
radio contact with civilian aviation authorities or used any of their
onboard transponders.
"This poses a potential
risk to civil aviation as civilian air traffic control cannot detect
these aircraft or ensure there is no interference with civilian air
traffic," NATO said in its release.
That concern was echoed
by a U.S. official speaking with CNN who noted that none of any recent
interactions between U.S. and Russian aircraft have proved problematic
to this point.
NATO said that in a
24-hour period ending late Wednesday, there were more than 19 instances
of Russian aircraft in European airspace.
According to NATO,
Norwegian F-16s were scrambled and intercepted eight Russian aircraft
flying over the North Sea. While some of the aircraft turned back toward
Russia, two Tu-95 Bear H Russian bombers continued their flight, and
were identified and intercepted by F-16s from Portugal.
British fighters were
also scrambled in response as the two Russian planes continued their
flight westward over the Atlantic Ocean.
NATO said the two
Russian planes subsequently resumed a flight path back toward Russia but
said those two planes were still airborne at the time of the press
release.
Source:CNN
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