Wings of the Red Star

Probing:

With tensions high between the West and Russia over Ukraine, British Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled on Wednesday to intercept seven Russian military aircraft flying near the Baltic states. A NATO official said the Russian aircraft were armed and in the vicinity of NATO airspace, reported Reuters. They did not file a flight plan and did not use their transponders.

They're gathering detailed information on response times, intercept vectors, typical air-to-air payloads on the intercepting aircraft... We call it "reconnaissance" for short.

NATO planes patrolling the Baltics have scrambled repeatedly in the last week in response to sightings of Russian military aircraft. Last Thursday, Latvia said NATO fighters had scrambled a record four times after a total of 16 Russian military planes were spotted close to the country's air space. Local news agency BNS quoted Latvia's Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma on Monday as saying that the increased activity by Russian military planes was an "intimidation tactic" and a demonstration of power by Russia. "The same tactics are used also in Ukraine and elsewhere," she said.

Does anyone really believe this deliberate increase in activity over a potential area of Russian expansion is nothing more than coincidence? Well, anybody other than the naive children in the White House, I mean.