Russian Military Plane Buzzes NATO Warships
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
June 14, 2015
A Russian military surveillance aircraft skimmed above four North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) warships in the Baltic Sea earlier this week, CNN is reporting.
According to the television channel, the incident involving four NATO warships, including US destroyer Jason Dunham, occurred on Thursday. One British, one French and one German vessel were also part of the group.
According to reports, the Russian military plane flew above the decks of one of the four NATO vessels at an altitude of just 500 feet.
"We are not calling this safe and professional. We are calling it routine, but we are on the edge of being very uncomfortable," an unnamed US Defense Department official was quoted as saying.
While not as close as the previous incident where the Russian fighter plane was just 10 feet away from the U.S. plane, this is still dangerously close by any stretch of imagination.
CNN has added in the report that this latest incident involving the U.S., Russia, and NATO has not yet been publicly acknowledged. In fact, the report goes on to say that personnel aboard USS Jason Dunham captured the entire incident on video.
The video, which is currently in the possession of the Pentagon, has not yet been released into the public domain. On Saturday, an official from the U.S Defense Department confirmed that the incident did happen.
