NATO air forces were scrambled more than 300 times in response to Russian military aircraft in 2023, the treaty organisation said on Friday.
\n\u201cThe vast majority of aerial encounters between NATO and Russian jets were safe and professional. Breaches of NATO airspace by Russian military aircraft remained rare and generally of short duration,\u201d NATO said, adding most intercepts occurred over the Baltic Sea.
\nFollowing Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, NATO substantially reinforced its eastern flank air defences with more fighter jets, surveillance flights and ground-based air defences.
\n\u201cNATO fighter jets are on duty around the clock, ready to scramble in case of suspicious or unannounced flights near the airspace of our Allies,\u201d NATO spokesperson Dylan White said in a statement.
\nEarlier on Friday, Russia launched one of its biggest missile attacks on Ukraine of the war so far, killing 12 civilians, wounding dozens more and hitting residential buildings in Kyiv, the south and west of the country.
\n(Reuters)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2023, NATO air forces were scrambled over 300 times in response to Russian military aircraft. The majority of encounters were safe and professional, with breaches of NATO airspace by Russian aircraft being rare and short-lived. Most intercepts occurred over the Baltic Sea. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO reinforced its eastern flank air defenses. NATO fighter jets are on standby at all times to respond to suspicious or unannounced flights near the airspace of NATO allies. On the same day, Russia launched a major missile attack on Ukraine, resulting in civilian casualties and damage to residential buildings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3,292,19,114,17,293,18],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyprus","tag-cyprus","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-top-news","tag-ukraine","tag-war","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n