US to add six F-15 jet fighters to Nato Baltic patrols, Lithuania says
US send jets to Lithuania as President Dalia Grybauskaite cautions that Russia is trying to redraw Europe according to its own interests
The United States will on Thursday send six additional F-15 fighter jets to step up Nato air patrols over the Baltic states, mission host Lithuania said as West-Russia tensions simmered over Ukraine.
“I have had confirmation that the air police missions will be reinforced by six additional F-15 fighters,” Defence Minister Juozas Olekas told reporters.
The move is a response to “Russian aggression in Ukraine and additional military activity in the Kaliningrad region,” Russia’s exclave bordering Lithuania and Poland, he said.
“We have witnessed increased military activity in Kaliningrad. Today it is lesser than three or four days before,” he added.
The jets will land on Thursday at 9.40am local time at the Zokniai Air Base, once the home of Red Army troops near the northern Lithuanian town of Siauliai, ministry spokesman Vaidotas Linkus added.
President Grybauskaite told reporters in Brussels that the jets are a sign that “Nato is responding promptly and fast”.
“Europe still is not able to understand what is happening,” she said.