Featured Image Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, NATO, Russia, Vladimir Putin, World News, Politics, US News
Joe Harker
Topics: Donald Trump, NATO, Russia, Vladimir Putin, World News, Politics, US News
Donald Trump has spoken out after Russian planes violated NATO airspace over Estonia.
In another provocative move from Vladimir Putin's Russia, some of his military aircraft have ended up very much where they shouldn't be as they were caught over Estonia.
A trio of Russian MiG-31 fighter jets crossed into Estonia's airspace for approximately 12 minutes. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna saying Russian aircraft had done this multiple times this year.
He called the move 'unacceptable in itself' before saying that the latest Russian incursion was 'unprecedentedly brazen'.
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Estonia has activated NATO's Article 4, which means it wants an emergency consultation on matters in a manner similar to Poland when Russian drones recently entered their airspace, with some brought down.
Two other Russian fighter jets also violated airspace over a Polish drilling platform in the Baltic Sea, so Putin is prodding multiple countries with aerial incursions.
A NATO spokesperson said that allied aircraft responded to the Russian fighter jets and 'intercepted the Russian aircraft', which definitely does not mean they were shot down or there'd be an even larger kerfuffle over it.
US President Donald Trump has now given his thoughts on the matter, as he was asked whether or not there could be a threat to NATO and said: "I don't love it. I don't like it when that happens. It could be big trouble."
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Trump said he'd have to look at the situation and he would shortly be properly briefed about the situation, and said 'I'll let you know about it tonight or tomorrow'.
During his time in the White House the relationship between Trump and Putin has been warmer than many other NATO countries would have hoped, but the US president's failure to secure a peace in Ukraine and the Russian dictator's apparent desire to continue his invasion has led to some condemnation from Trump.
At a state visit to the UK recently, Trump said that Putin had 'really let me down' over his efforts to get a peace deal.
"He’s killing many people, and he’s losing more people than he’s killing. The Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers," the US president said.
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Trump added that he thought a peace deal with Russia would have been easier to get 'because of my relationship with President Putin'.
When the Russian jets trespassed into NATO airspace planes from Italy, Finland and Sweden were scrambled as part of the response to intercept the aircraft and chase them out of Estonian skies.
The issue of what to do with Russian jets trespassing in the skies is a thorny one, as Putin regularly sends his planes close to NATO airspace, and sometimes they cross over to violate the agreed-upon boundaries.
NATO aircraft are typically scrambled to chase them out, but in 2015, a Russian fighter jet was shot down by NATO member Turkey after the plane was repeatedly warned to change course.