NATO announced on Thursday the temporary deployment of some AWACS surveillance planes at the Siauliai base in Lithuania, to monitor Russian military activities near the border of the North Atlantic Alliance, EFE and Agerpres.
NATO AWACS aircraft – Boeing E-3 SentryPhoto: A Periam Photography / Alamy / Alamy / Profimedia
The alliance indicates in a statement that the first of the two planes planned for this mission arrived at the Lithuanian air base on Thursday.
“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has made us more alert to the security environment in the Baltic Sea region,” said acting NATO spokesman Dylan White, who explained that AWACS aircraft can detect aircraft and missiles at hundreds of kilometers away, making them a key early warning capability for NATO.
“It is an important contribution to our common security,” he concluded.
In response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has strengthened its air presence in the eastern part of the Alliance, using fighter jets, surveillance aircraft and tanker aircraft.
Following Russian drone attacks near NATO territory, the US last week sent four additional F-16 fighter jets to Romania to bolster NATO’s aerial surveillance mission.
Stoltenberg: “Russian attacks near the border are reckless and destabilizing, NATO is there”
The Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Thursday, in Kiev, where he made a surprise visit, that the fragments of drones that fell in Romania in recent weeks show “no indication” of any “deliberate attack” from Russia’s side.
In any case, Stoltenberg said, Russian attacks near the border are “reckless and destabilizing” and “there should be no doubt that NATO is there to defend all allies”.
Since February 2022, AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft have conducted hundreds of flights over Eastern Europe to monitor Russian fighter jets.
AWACS will begin their reconnaissance flights over Alliance territory in the coming days, and the mission from the base in Siauliai, where approximately 150 military personnel will be deployed to support them, is expected to last several weeks.
These devices are part of a fleet of 14 surveillance aircraft owned by NATO at the base in Geilenkirchen (the state of North Rhine-Westphalia), in Germany.
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