NATO's chief said Thursday that Russia's growing military presence in the skies above the Baltic region is unjustified and that its aircraft regularly fail to file flight plans or communicate with air controllers, and fly with their transponders off, posing a risk to civil aviation, AP reported. At the Amari air base in Estonia, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said alliance fighters have intercepted planes more than 100 times in the region so far this year, a threefold increase on 2013. But he didn't say how many of them were Russian. Stoltenberg said the alliance "should stay vigilant" because Russia has increased its military air activity in the Black Sea and Norwegian Sea, as well as the Baltic area, even though most of the flights occurred in international airspace. He said NATO aircraft have conducted 400 intercepts to protect the airspace of European alliance members â€" an increase of 50 percent from last year. -- SPA 19:52 LOCAL TIME 16:52 GMT تغريد
