August 16, 2019
NATO F/A-18 Fighters vs. Russian Su-27s: An Incident You Need to Know About
In what is one of the most high-profile interceptions over Baltic airspace to date, a Spanish NATO F-18 fighter was driven off by a Russian Su-27 as it approached a plane carrying the Russian Defense Minister.
by Mark Episkopos
In what is one of the most high-profile interceptions over Baltic airspace to date, a Spanish NATO F-18 fighter was driven off by a Russian Su-27 as it approached a plane carrying the Russian Defense Minister.
Though the story was first reported by the TASS (Russian state news) correspondent who was on board Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s plane at the time of the incident, the basic facts of the story are not disputed by either side: a Spanish F-18 from NATO’s Air Policing mission was seen off by a Su-27 after being scrambled to approach Shoigu’s plane as it was flying over international Baltic airspace from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad back to Moscow. Video footage of the event, published by Russia’s Defense Ministry, shows the Su-27 making a sharp turn into the F-18 and causing it to veer off the Russian VIP plane’s trajectory.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/nato-fa-18-fighters-vs-russian-su-27s-incident-you-need-know-about-74241
