Overview
- Allied fighters, which launched Monday from the NATO mission in Šiauliai, tracked two Tu-22M3 bombers and about ten Su-30 and Su-35 escorts over the Baltic Sea.
- Jets from France, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Denmark and Romania took turns to identify and monitor the formation.
- Russia said the long‑range flight was planned, stayed over neutral waters for about four hours, and was at times accompanied by foreign fighters.
- NATO officials say such intercepts are triggered when Russian crews fly without transponders, skip flight plans or do not talk to air traffic control, and Lithuania logged four scrambles for those issues between April 13 and 19.
- In a separate Barents Sea mission, Norway’s F‑35s intercepted Il‑38 and Tu‑142 patrol planes, a standard drill that briefly kept a passenger jet in a holding pattern.