A pair of F-35s stationed in northern Europe were dispatched to intercept a trio of Russian warplanes, including two jet fighters, on Monday evening after being detected flying towards NATO airspace with their transponders off.
Three Russian aircraft, an Il-20M intelligence-gathering (‘spy’) plane and two SU-27 Flankers — a Russian analogue to the U.S. F-15 Eagle — were intercepted near the Russian-Polish border on Monday. While they did not enter NATO airspace, they were said to have approached Poland from the Kaliningrad Oblast, a small Russian exclave on the Baltic wedged between Poland and Lithuania with their transponders turned off and also flew in neutral airspace over the Baltic, Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza reports.
Heute sind unsere Eurofighter bei #VAPB aufgestiegen und haben 1
IL-20-Coot-A und 2
