NATO changes the status of the Baltic patrol mission to air defense with the right to destroy threats
Kyiv • UNN
NATO has agreed to upgrade the status of the Baltic air policing mission to air defense. Pilots will receive a broader mandate, including the destruction of objects that pose a threat.
NATO has agreed to upgrade the status of its long-standing Baltic air policing mission to air defense, giving pilots a broader mandate, including the destruction of "objects that pose a threat," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said on Wednesday, reports UNN citing Reuters.
Details
The NATO air policing mission in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — the three Baltic states located near Russia and lacking their own fighter jets — was launched in 2004, immediately after their accession to the NATO alliance.
Aircraft identify and escort Russian military planes flying near these three countries. This year, they shot down drones over Estonia and Latvia, which NATO indicates was the first time the mission opened fire in defense of the alliance.
"(The current) air policing mission is designed for peacetime, when fighters respond to incidents by escorting them. In this way, we show that we have the situation under control. It is a kind of deterrence," Nausėda told journalists in Ankara.
"But what is happening today is not exactly a peaceful environment," he added.
The upgraded mission will have "greater flexibility and faster response to air threats," Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna wrote on X.
Currently, Baltic air policing aircraft take off to detect and identify every Russian military plane flying over international waters adjacent to the three Baltic states, from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the Gulf of Finland and up to the border with Russia.
The mission was expanded in 2014 after Russia occupied Crimea from Ukraine, and now includes over a dozen fighter jets from three NATO member states, based at two airfields in the region.
Last year, fighters scrambled in response to Russia sending a Su-35 fighter to escort a shadow fleet oil tanker after Estonia attempted to detain it. They did not engage with the Su-35.