Nato and Russian fighter jets face-off over Baltic Sea
Nato member Estonia spotted the sanctioned Jaguar tanker heading towards Russia and dispatched a helicopter and a navy patrol boat to try and stop the ship, which was allegedly sailing under no flag.
Nato aircraft, including Polish MiG-29s, were scrambled as the vessel refused to cooperate.
In response, Moscow scrambled a Su-35 to protect the sanctioned tanker, and is alleged to have entered Nato airspace while trying to do so.
Credit: X/@M_Simonyan
The tanker was able to escape and is now anchored near the Russian port of Primorsk.
Video footage posted on X shows the confrontation.
Filmed from a bridge of a tanker believed to be the Jaguar, the video shows a navy surveillance boat, a helicopter and a patrol aircraft hovering nearby.
'This is Estonian warship... follow my instructions, alter your course to 105 immediately,' says a voice on the radio. In Russian, a voice says off-camera: 'We are met by helicopters, they demand we go on anchor.'
Military jets are seen flying around the vessels.
The Jaguar tanker is part of Moscow's shadow fleet and was sanctioned by Britain last Friday.
But on Tuesday, it was spotted heading towards Russia.
The ship was near Naissaar Island, off Tallinn, when the Estonian Navy communicated with it by radio, Commander Ivo Vark told Reuters news agency.
As it was sailing 'without a nationality', Estonia 'had an obligation to verify the vessel's documents and legal status', he said on Wednesday.
'The vessel denied cooperation and continued its journey toward Russia... given the vessel's lack of nationality, the use of force, including boarding the vessel, was deemed unnecessary.'
An Estonian patrol escorted the Jaguar until it reached Russian waters, he added.
Estonia's foreign minister described the situation as 'really serious'.
'The Russian Federation sent a fighter jet to check the situation, and this fighter jet violated Nato territory for close to one minute,' Margus Tsahkna told reporters in the Turkish city of Antalya.
'We need to understand that Russia has officially tried and connected itself to the Russian 'shadow fleet',' he said, speaking ahead of a meeting of Nato foreign ministers.
'(The) Russian Federation is ready to protect the 'shadow fleet'... The situation is really serious,' he added.
The Jaguar is one of more than 100 ships in Russia's shadow fleet, a term Western countries use for ships they accuse Moscow of deploying to avoid international sanctions, typically unregulated and uninsured by regular Western organisations.
On Thursday, the Jaguar was anchored near the Russian port of Primorsk, Marine Traffic data showed. It was listed there under the flag of the central African nation of Gabon.
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