(Peter Kollanyi/Bloomberg News)On a recent night at this air base where NATO fighter pilots keep a constant vigil against the Kremlin, the alarms that warn that Russian planes were veering toward NATO airspace wouldn’t stop going off. And the NATO fighter jets kept rushing into the air to meet them. The vast majority of the traffic comes from runs in international airspace between Russian air bases near St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave wedged between Lithuania and Poland. NATO jets have scrambled to intercept planes about 600 times this year, the vast majority of them in international airspace. Soviet-era plane tails serve as grave markers just outside the entrance to Estonia’s Amari Air Base, a reminder of the area’s complicated history.

Source: Washington Post November 06, 2016 22:30 UTC