Two British Royal Air Force aircraft flew a 12-hour mission earlier this week alongside US and NATO forces to patrol the border of Russia, United Kingdom Defence Minister John Healy has said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The operation, involving two of the UK’s most advanced surveillance aircraft, flew along NATO’s eastern flank and followed a series of recent Russian drone and aircraft incursions into NATO airspace.<\/p>\n
“This was a substantial joint mission with our US and NATO allies,” Mr Healey said.<\/p>\n
“Not only does this provide valuable intelligence to boost the operational awareness of our armed forces, but sends a powerful message of NATO unity to Putin and our adversaries.”<\/p>\n
The mission patrolled the border of Russia along NATO\u2019s eastern flank. (UK Royal Air Force)<\/p>\n
An RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic surveillance aircraft and a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane flew from the Arctic region past Belarus and Ukraine on Thursday, supported by a US Air Force KC-135 refuelling aircraft.<\/p>\n
According to an RAF statement, the USAF’s refuelling aircraft “played a critical role in enabling the mission’s success by providing essential air-to-air refuelling, extending the operational reach of the RAF aircraft”.<\/p>\n
RAF Group Captain Matthew D’Aubyn said the British air force is “committed to working alongside our allies to ensure the safety and sovereignty of NATO airspace”.<\/p>\n
“Missions like this demonstrate NATO’s unity and readiness to defend its members against any aggression,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Our ability to operate seamlessly with USAF assets underscores the strength of the NATO alliance.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
British Defence Secretary John Healey said the mission “sends a powerful message” to Russia. (Reuters: Jaimi Joy)<\/p>\n
Mr Healy said the operation followed incursions into the airspaces of NATO countries including Poland, Romania and Estonia.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, European Union leaders backed plans to strengthen the bloc’s defences against Russian drones.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two British Royal Air Force aircraft flew a 12-hour mission earlier this week alongside US and NATO forces…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3941,142,59,57,58,3105,50,3612,154,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-193061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-aircraft","tag-drones","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-nato","tag-news","tag-raf","tag-russia","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}