Europe privately warns Moscow of readiness to shoot down Russian planes – Bloomberg
Vladimir Putin was made to understand that NATO will shoot down Russian planes (photo: Getty Images)
European diplomats privately warned the Kremlin that the next provocation involving Russian aircraft would end with them being shot down, Bloomberg reports.
According to the publication's sources, EU diplomats warned Russia that NATO is ready to respond with full force if Russian aircraft continue to violate the airspace of Alliance member states. Simply put, Russian planes will be shot down.
During a meeting in Moscow, the ambassadors of Britain, France, and Germany informed the Russians that they understood the violations were a deliberate tactic employed by the Russian military command. The meeting, according to the publication's interlocutors, was tense.
Russians lie and threaten
Russian officials, meanwhile, deny that their aircraft violated Estonian airspace and claim that they allegedly did not try to provoke NATO. According to the Russian version, the incident with the drone attack on Poland allegedly happened solely by mistake.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov this week publicly lied, saying that Russian military flights allegedly take international rules into account. The Kremlin continues to insist that there was no violation of Estonian airspace by MiG-31K fighters.
According to sources, in private, a Russian diplomat admitted the incidents and told European colleagues that provocations by Russia were allegedly a response to Ukrainian attacks on temporarily occupied Crimea. Allegedly, these attacks would have been impossible without NATO support, so the Kremlin accuses Western countries of taking part in the war against Russia.
Russia also resorted to open threats, pulling out the scarecrow of NATO allegedly being dragged into open conflict. The Russian ambassador to France, Alexey Meshkov, dared to state on September 25 that the downing of a Russian plane would allegedly mean a NATO war against Russia.
US President Donald Trump stated that NATO member states must shoot down Russian planes that violate their airspace, but his words were quickly refuted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. French President Emmanuel Macron also disagreed with Trump.
On the other hand, several European countries take this issue extremely seriously. Poland declared that it is ready to shoot down Russian planes and drones, advising the Kremlin not to complain. Sweden made the same statement. And the NATO Secretary General supported Trump's idea of shooting down Russian violators.
Russian provocations against NATO: What is known
On Friday, September 19, three Russian MiG-31 fighters, which carry Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles, crossed into Estonian airspace and remained there for 12 minutes.
In addition, two more Russian fighters flew over the Petrobaltic oil and gas platform in the Baltic Sea within Poland's territorial waters. Both incidents caused outrage among NATO countries.
