This was the Russian Defense Ministry's response on Saturday morning to the incident involving the violation of a NATO member's airspace.
The fighter jets reportedly flew from northwestern Russia to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. “The flight was conducted in strict accordance with international airspace rules, without violating the borders of other states, which was confirmed by independent checks,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a post on Telegram.
The Estonian government announced on Friday that three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets had entered the country's airspace without permission and remained over its territory for 12 minutes. The local army confirmed that the military aircraft had entered the airspace around the island of Vaindloo, about 100 kilometers from Tallinn, in the morning. The aircraft had allegedly not submitted any flight plans, their transponders were not switched on, and they did not communicate with air traffic control.
Local Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna described the incident as “unprecedentedly brazen” and pointed out that this was already the fourth violation of Estonian airspace by Russia this year.
