DefMin Fifor on Russian fighter plane interception over Black Sea: No violation of Romania's airspace

Minister of National Defense Mihai Fifor, commenting on Saturday the interception on Thursday of a Russian airplane above the Black Sea, near the Romanian airspace, said this is no reason for concern but that such incidents are not infrequent and put to the test the NATO Force speed of reaction.

"Regrettably, such situations are not extremely rare, yet I don't think we should talk about concern. These are (...) actions by the Russian Armed Forces in the Black Sea area, in a way this puts to the test the response speed of our troops, of the Romanian Air Force and of the NATO Forces. We are here, we are ready, we are a member of the North Atlantic Alliance and we fulfill the mission we committed to without any problem," Fifor said in a phone-in with Antena 3 TV station.

He said the Russian plane had been intercepted on Thursday in an air policing mission that had scrambled from the Mihail Kogalniceanu airport; two Romanian Air Force aircraft, and subsequently two jets of the Royal Canadian Air Force had taken off for the policing mission in the Romanian and NATO airspace, to monitor the Russian aircraft which actually did not enter any moment the Romanian or NATO airspace; this is the procedure and that's the customary way such missions are carried out. (...) Unfortunately such events are not extremely rare, such things happening, these are missions both the Romanian Air Force, and our partners - whether the British or now the Canadian Air Force have to accomplish Fifor said.

The DefMin mentioned that there was no contact with the Moscow authorities following the spotting of the Russian plane on Thursday and that the jets were scrambled just as per the customary procedure.

In a Facebook message on Friday, CAF Operations wrote that "working with the Romanian Air Force as part of the NATO enhanced Air Policing, Royal Canadian Air Force CF-188 Hornets intercepted a Russian SU-27 Flanker aircraft that was operating near Romanian airspace over the Black Sea. When the Russian aircraft was detected by the Control and Reporting Centre of the Romanian Air Force, RCAF Hornets were scrambled by NATO's southern Combined Air Operations Centre at Torrejon, Spain. The Russian aircraft was closely monitored by our Hornets before it left the Romanian flight information region."