Russia has begun military exercises in its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad in what the Defence Ministry said was a response to drills by NATO allies in parts of eastern Europe, Reuters reported. In a statement on its website, the Defence ministry did not reveal the scale of the Russian exercises but said the equipment and number of troops involved "corresponds" to the size of the NATO manoeuvres. "The training of the army's group in the Kaliningrad operational (theatre) is being held simultaneously with the international (NATO) exercises of Saber Strike-2014 and Baltops-2014 launched in Europe,' the statement said. It added that 24 ships from Moscow's Baltic Sea Fleet were patrolling Russian territorial waters there while its regional air force had been beefed up with extra Su-27 fighter jets.
