Russia testing in lieu of night
Posted: 22 Apr 2013, 13:21
http://www.thelocal.se/47474/20130422/Russian fighter planes carried out training missions just outside the Swedish border over Easter; Sweden's military, however, was too slow to react and had to rely on help from Nato, the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper (SvD) revealed on Monday.
The aircraft included two heavy bombers Tu-22M3 (referred to as Backfires by Nato) which were flanked by four jet fighter escorts.
The planes flew from Saint Petersburg after midnight on March 29th, and headed past the eastern edge of Stockholm's archipelago. Usually, Russian jets continue such exercises by heading south towards Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland
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No Swedish planes were prepared to meet the Russians and ward them off; however, jets from Nato in Lithuania and from Denmark were quick to respond, with two Lithuanian aircraft sent to shadow the Russian planes at a distance.