Click to see full-size image
On July 8th, a news conference with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez at a NATO airbase in Lithuania was interrupted, when Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian warplanes.
The two leaders were three minutes into a news conference, televised live from the Siauliai airbase in northern Lithuanian, when flight crews responded to an alarm and scrambled their jets. The leaders and the media were led away.
Military officials later confirmed the Spanish jets, based in Lithuania on a NATO mission to police Baltic airspace, were activated after reports two Russian Su-24 combat jets had taken off from Russia’s Kaliningrad region without filing flight plans, without their transponders on, and without responding to regional air traffic control.
After the jets departed, the news conference continued, with the Spanish Prime Minister saying that this was evidence NATO presence was “needed”.
“We have seen a real-life case of what happens and precisely it justifies the presence of Spanish troops with the seven Eurofighters in Lithuania.”
In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said the two Su-24 bombers were flying a regular training mission over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea. The statement claimed the flight was performed in strict accordance with international rules of using airspace and without violation of any country’s borders.
Witnessed allied solidarity in action today. The press conference w/ 🇪🇸 PM @sanchezcastejon at airbase of @NATO Baltic Air Police Mission was suddenly interrupted. 🇪🇸 fighter jets alpha scrambled after the alarm of the infringed airspace.
Thank you 🇪🇸 for our security #WeAreNATO pic.twitter.com/g4IlJ3Ow22— Gitanas Nausėda (@GitanasNauseda) July 8, 2021
El Presidente del Gobierno @sanchezcastejon visita el #DestacamentoVilkas 🇪🇸 en #Lithuania 🇱🇹 del @EjercitoAire en la misión de Policía Aérea del Báltico #BAP @NATO#MOPS#WeAreNATO@SpainNATO@Defensagob pic.twitter.com/SBiGiqv3H8
— Estado Mayor Defensa 🇪🇸 (@EMADmde) July 8, 2021
Spanish-language outlet El Pais reported that unnamed military sources “assume that Russia intentionally raised the alert for the visit of the Spanish president,” especially since there had been no previous such incidents in the previous 18 days.
“Alliance sources believe that it is not by chance that [the alert] occurred during the appearance of Sánchez and the Lithuanian president,” the newspaper added.
However, Russian military aircraft activity in the Baltic, and especially between the exclave of Kaliningrad and Russia itself is by no means uncommon.
Currently, around 140 personnel from the Spanish military are at Šiauliai for the BAP (Baltic Air Police) mission.
The Spanish Air Force, or Ejército del Aire, has been providing the latest BAP rotation at the Lithuanian base since April 30, while an Italian Air Force F-35A contingent is meanwhile making its debut appearance at Ämari in Estonia.
These are currently augmented by a detachment of Turkish Air Force F-16s at Malbork in Poland.
To date, Spain has been one of the active contributors to BAP, with eight of these deployments to the Baltic since 2006. As well as Typhoons, Spain has also sent Mirage F1M and EF-18 Hornet fighters to the region.
During the 2018 deployment, the Spanish Typhoons made headlines after an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM was accidentally fired by one of the jets, around 50 miles west of the country’s border with Russia.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
please lithuania hahaha a bunch of forests and a bunch of nato larpers hiding behind what a joke
They don’t even have an air force. Other EU countries are sending 1-2 jets rotational all year long. Its a joke.
NATO should donate a few F-16s and F-35s to Lithuania.
It may be good if Russia chartered a few ferries to transport African refugees to Spanish loser puppets shores. Algeria and Morocco would be most grateful.
Both of which are complete garbage. More f-16s have crashed (almost 800 crashed or scrapped) than most fighter aircraft entire production run.
The dumb Jew infested Lithuanians are a real “powerhouse” and Russia should be scared LOL. The dumbasses have a lazy brainwashed population of barely 2.7 million and export the highest number of prostitutes to Sweden. Most Lithuanian “men” are either queer or pimps like Uki ar$eholes.
Lithuania’s population has been decreasing due to a collapsed economy after the collapse of the USSR and high emigration and lower number of births than deaths due to high same sex couples and women immigrating to higher income Scandinavian nations for sex work. Lithuania has the fastest decreasing population in the world.
Fuc..k you and your mother and all your family and what you eat. Stop beeing a fuc..king racist…
Deal with reality bitch. Put your diapers on and wait for the next air raid siren…
russia has truely pathetic entities as wannabe hostiles in its european frontier its kind of lucky in that sense
The micro sized Baltic countries are unfortunately poorly equipped to be american colonies. No doubt the Russians sit back and laugh.
“Estonian consul in St. Petersburg detained after being ‘caught red-handed’ by Russia’s FSB ‘receiving classified secret documents’ RT
Can you say “grandstanding”?
What a laughable and infantile publicity stunt. They were laughing right there.
Lame PR stunt.
Shitty beta countries trying to get brownie points from Uncle Sam by guarding other shitty beta countries.
Standard NATO publicity stunt. NATO making hyperbolic statements about ordinary military flights to try and sell NATO eastern expansionism to western public. Russian warplanes flying over Baltic Sea is nothing out of ordinary – just as British warplanes flying over Mediterranean Sea is nothing out of the ordinary. These are routines exercises. Just more of same – hyperbolic NATO media marketing pitched at the gullible.
Spain have problems with Morocco and NATO will not help in case of war
Spain also has no balls to liberate Gibraltar from the limey gut thieves.
Lol worry about Iranians leaving Shia filth lol
2 Russian jets ( Pretty old school jets at that) take off from their own air space! Looks like a NATO photo-op stunt to me.
Very impressive. Two hyper-expensive aircraft for a tough looking publicity stunt. That is Spain’s contribution to another Operation Barbarossa. What a pathetic joke for a country that needs a financial bailout from the European Central Bank. What’s next, the New Spanish Armada sailing off of St. Petersburg?
Sounds like a made up story. NBC did a s
This is the same Spain that sent the Blue Division to fight alongside the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front and maintained the tyrant Franco in power until his death?
If US politicians in World War II had the same demented, brain damaged, mentally disturbed, deranged, immature, extremely ignorant, infantile way of thinking as today’s US freaks, they would have said “but those Spanish fascists are the good moderate ones and that Stalin guy has to go.”
the timing this has the smell of bullshit