Germany’s Luftwaffe air force announced the incident via Twitter on Wednesday, the Reuters news agency reported.
Germany and Britain sent Eurofighter jets to identify the Russian planes, which included two Sukhoi Su-27 flankers and one Ilyushin Il-20 aircraft, according to Luftwaffe.
The German air force also posted a number of photos of the Russian planes mid-flight.
Moscow’s military aircraft regularly fly from mainland Russia to the country's westernmost region of Kaliningrad and back, making such encounters “fairly routine” in the region, the Reuters news agency reported.
NATO allies, including Poland, take turns to protect the air space over the Baltic states as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia do not have their own fighter jets, according to news outlets.
Earlier this month, Germany handed over responsibility for NATO's Baltic air policing mission to Britain, Reuters reported.
Ukraine working with FBI to collect evidence of Russian war crimes
Meanwhile, Polish state news agency PAP reported on Wednesday that Ukrainian authorities were working with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and American firms to gather evidence of war crimes committed by Russians.
Ukrainian officials were collecting digital data, such as geolocation and cellphone information, from the battlefields as well as towns stricken by the war since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported.
Alex Kobzanets, an FBI special agent, told a cybersecurity conference in San Francisco on Tuesday: “Collection of that data, analysis of that data, working through that data is something the FBI has experience working through.”
The investigation includes looking into cellphone information, forensic analyses of DNA samples, as well as analysis of body parts collected off battlefields, the FBI agent added.
The initiative reflects deepening collaboration between the United States and Ukraine on the cyber front, where Russia has been a common adversary for both nations, Reuters reported.
Wednesday is day 427 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Reuters, The Guardian