Russian warplane warns Nato away from defence minister’s jet

A NATO military aircraft approached a plane carrying the Russian defence minister over the Baltic Sea, Russian news agencies reported yesterday, the third such encounter in three days.

The jet tried to draw near to Sergei Shoigu’s aircraft but a Russian Sukhoi SU-27 intervened, rocking its wings to show it was armed, said journalists with the minister. Nato insisted its crew’s actions were “routine” to identify the plane while “maintaining a safe distance” before breaking away.

Nato and national air forces began monitoring flights last week after tracking “an unusually large number of Russian military aircraft” in the area, a Nato spokesman said. Mr Shoigu was flying to Kaliningrad, a highly militarised Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea, to meet defence officials.

At the meeting, he warned “the situation near Russia’s western borders is tending to get worse”, adding: “This is tied with the upsurge of military activity of Nato countries in Eastern Europe.” Nato is deploying four international battalions in Poland and each of the former Soviet Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Moscow sees the build-up as an attempt to contain Russia.

Yesterday, Sweden summoned Russia’s ambassador after a Sukhoi fighter jet flew unusually close to a Swedish reconnaissance plane over the Baltic.