MOSCOW\u00a0\u2014 Russia ordered its military on Saturday to draw up measures to increase the safety of the airspace over the Baltic Sea, after a string of incidents and near-misses that has ratcheted up tensions between NATO and Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu commanded the military to develop “a system of trust measures that would increase flight safety in the Baltic Sea region,” a ministry statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia’s NATO-member Baltic neighbors have accused Moscow of regularly violating their airspace in recent months and flying with switched-off transponders, devices that allow radars to identify planes and prevent collisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russian planes have also been accused of dangerous manoeuvres in the Baltic, with one particularly close call in April, when a Russian Sukhoi jet flew less than 50 feet (15 meters) from a US destroyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Moscow has also made its own accusations, notably against US spy planes invisible to Russian radars that then have to be visually identified by warplanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that NATO planes fly without transponders “twice as often” as Russian aircraft and promised to bring up the issue at an upcoming Russia-NATO council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The defense minister is considering making the use of transponders compulsory if NATO countries take similar measures, the statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia’s military has focused heavily on the Baltics recently, with Shoigu announcing on Wednesday that the Baltic Fleet would be boosted by a new army corps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Baltic Fleet commander Sergei Kravchuk and several other senior officers were sacked this week for “serious shortfalls in their duty,” a rare major overhaul underscoring Moscow’s growing attention to the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW\u00a0\u2014 Russia ordered its military on Saturday to draw up measures to increase the safety of the airspace over the Baltic Sea, after a string of incidents and near-misses that has ratcheted up tensions between NATO and Moscow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":72990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":46,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[46,11,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2793],"class_list":["post-33918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-global","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"5PIZXMIGPRGYRDFZL346EBOILI","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/europe\/2016\/07\/02\/russia-orders-safety-overhaul-in-tense-baltic-airspace\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n