Tension is still rising over European skies, after the American drone shot down by two Russian jets over the Black Sea.
British Royal Air Force (RAF) and German Air Force fighter jets intercepted a Russian military aircraft over Estonian airspace, the BBC said.
The Russian aircraft, a four-engine Ilyushin Il-78 Midas transport and aerial refueling aircraft, was flying between the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, and passed over Estonian airspace, over the Baltic, without announcing its handover to air control of Tallinn.
The two planes that intercepted him were two Typhoons that took off for the occasion, one German and one British. They escorted the Russian aircraft out of Estonian airspace, then were redirected to escort another Russian jet that was still approaching Estonian airspace.
"The interception itself is almost routine, but it is the first time that such an operation has been carried out jointly by the United Kingdom and Germany, who plan to jointly patrol the Baltic region within NATO", writes the BBC .
Furthermore, the operation took place at a time of high tension between the US-NATO and Russia over the matter of the drone over the Black Sea and against the background of the war in Ukraine.
(Unioneonline/L)
