<\/span>
\n <\/button><\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s a game of cat and mouse, or rather cat and cat,\u201d said Lt. Col. Alexandre, commander of a French air force wing of four Rafales that is sharing the Lithuanian base with another fighter detachment from Romania. Citing security concerns, the French military withheld the commander\u2019s surname.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe watch each other, scrutinize each other and try to make sure that it doesn\u2019t go any further,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Alliance members take turns policing Baltic skies around the clock, seven days a week. The French inherited the building that now serves as their temporary headquarters from a Spanish detachment. They will hand it over to Italian replacements in August. Successive teams leave plaques and badges on a wall that records their passage. <\/p>\n
NATO scrambles jets to identify and possibly take other action when Russian planes fly in Baltic airspace without switched-on transponders and without filing flight plans or communicating by radio with air traffic controllers. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are plenty of times in which, on purpose or not, they\u2019re not really respecting the ICAO \u2014 the International Civil Aviation Organization \u2014 rules, regarding flight plans and behavior,\u201d said Col. Mihaita Marin, commanding the Romanian detachment of six F-16s. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo obviously we are forced to take off and just make sure that they are who they say they are and their intention is peaceful,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The arrival of spring, bringing better flying conditions, means French and Romanian flyers have been busy since they deployed at the start of April on four-month NATO rotations. <\/p>\n
Marin said interceptions \u201care getting close to daily\u201d and \u201cthat will definitely increase as the weather is getting better.\u201d <\/p>\n
French aircrews \u2014 watched by an Associated Press journalist who was reporting at the airbase \u2014 had their busiest day so far on Monday. <\/p>\n
Scrambled under NATO command, French Rafales met and observed a pair of Russian Tu-22M3 bombers carrying supersonic, anti-ship missiles from their bellies that Russia has also used in Ukraine, repurposing them to attack ground targets, and which can be equipped to carry a nuclear warhead. <\/p>\n
The strategic bombers\u2019 more than four-hour flight from an airbase near St. Petersburg, escorted by Su-30 and Su-35 fighters, remained in international airspace but took them past the coasts of NATO countries Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, doubling back when they approached Denmark. <\/p>\n
The French detachment said the Russian planes didn\u2019t have switched-on transponders, file flight plans or enter into radio contact. Fighter jets from Sweden, Finland, Poland, Denmark and Romania also went airborne to keep watch, according to the French. NATO didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The French commander, Lt. Col. Alexandre, said it isn\u2019t clear why Russian pilots behave in ways that could endanger other users of Baltic airspace.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know if it\u2019s lack of professionalism or just a means for them to test us,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut what is sure is that we need to go every time,\u201d he added. \u201cWe cannot say, \u2018OK, that\u2019s usual, this time we will just let them pass.\u2019\u201d <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A flight-crew member climbs into the cockpit of a French air force Rafale fighter jet stationed on a NATO air-policing mission at the Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania as another member of the French detachment stands at the foot of the ladder on Sunday, April 19, 2026 (AP Photo\/John Leicester) 2026-04-24T06:04:17Z \u0160IAULIAI AIR BASE, Lithuania… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}