NATO argued that a Russian Su-27 fighter jet kept its transponders off and performed an 'unsafe maneuver' as it kept a Spanish F/A-18 away from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's airliner.
on the day of the incident, a NATO spokesperson said that"Jets from NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission scrambled to identify the aircraft which flew close to Allied airspace. Once identification of the aircraft had taken place, the NATO jets returned to base. NATO has no information as to who was on board." Again NATO maintained it"has no information as to who was on board.
NATO officially describes its Air Policing mission as"a collective task and a purely defensive mission, which involves the 24/7 presence of fighter aircraft, which are ready to react quickly to airspace violations." It brought this operation to the Baltics in 2004 when Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined what has since become a 29-nation defense group.
Long-strained on both sides of these borders were significantly damaged amid a 2014 uprising in Ukraine that brought in a pro-NATO president, but saw Moscow annex the neighboring Crimean Peninsula and stand accused of backing a separatist insurgency in the east. Tensions arose and by 2016 NATO had designated multi-national battle groups in the three Baltic states and Poland.
NATO has defended the U.S.' decision to exit the INF but has expressed hesitation in introducing such new weapons to the frontlines of heightened frictions with Russia.
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