Members of the bloc should target Russian military aircraft as Türkiye did in 2015, Lithuanian MOD chief Dovile Sakaliene has said
NATO should shoot down Russian warplanes, Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene has said. Her comments came after Estonia, Lithuania’s neighbor, accused Russia of violating its airspace – something that Moscow has denied.
“We need to mean business,” Sakaliene said in a post on X, claiming that Russia “tested” the bloc’s borders “for a reason.”
Türkiye “set an example 10 years ago,” the minister added, referring to an incident in which the Turkish Air Force downed a Russian bomber over Syria, where Moscow was aiding the government of then President Bashar Assad against extremist groups.
Estonia – a Baltic state and a NATO member – claimed earlier this week that three Russian military aircraft violated its airspace for 12 minutes, in what it called an “unprecedented brazen” incursion. The Russian Defense Ministry denied the accusation, saying that its jets flew over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea, more than 3km from Estonia’s Vaindloo Island, “without violating Estonian airspace,” as part of a routine flight.
Tallinn also requested urgent consultations with its fellow NATO members under Article 4 of the bloc’s treaty. The incident took place just weeks after Poland – another NATO member – accused Russia of sending at least 19 drones into its airspace, a claim Moscow denied as well. The bloc responded by increasing air patrols over Poland.
Back in 2015, the Turkish Air Force brought down a Russian Su-24 bomber taking part in an anti-terrorist mission in Syria. The aircraft crashed in militant-held territory, and one of the pilots was killed on the ground after ejecting.
The shootdown led to the worst deterioration of Turkish-Russian relations in recent history, with Moscow slapping sanctions on Ankara that affected trade and tourism. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally apologized in 2016, and Moscow fully lifted the restrictions three years later.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova ridiculed Sakaliene’s statement by saying the minister only “demonstrated competence in her own phobias” and wished for her to “become accomplished” in her professional field, referring to the minister’s background in legal psychology.
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