NATO reconnaissance plane flies over Baltic countries, Gulf of Finland

MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. NATO’s Bombardier Challenger 650 Artemis II intelligence and reconnaissance aircraft is performing a flight over the Baltic countries and Estonia’s coast in the Gulf of Finland, an EU source in air traffic control told TASS.

"The plane, based in Romania’s Constanta, is flying from the south to the north and back in the airspace of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, turning around each time somewhere around Estonia’s coast in the Gulf of Finland," the source said.

The plane does not approach regions bordering Russia and Belarus.

"The Bombardier Challenger 650 Artemis II is flying at an altitude of 11 kilometers, outside the corridors established for civil aviation aircraft," the source said.

Last Saturday, the plane was spotted over the neutral waters of the Black Sea, flying from west to south and back and without crossing into the sovereign airspace of any country.

As a rule, the plane takes to the air only on weekdays, while weekend patrols are somewhat of a rarity.

The source told TASS that since early summer, Bombardier Challenger 650 Artemis II has been spotted over the Black Sea on several occasions. Besides, it was also detected in the vicinity of Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, circling around it in the airspace of Lithuania, Poland and the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea.