Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda announced on July 8 that the NATO air-policing mission in the Baltic states will be transformed into an air-defense mission. “This will significantly strengthen Lithuania’s air-defense capabilities,” Nausėda said in a comment provided to the Baltic News Service (BNS).
BNS also noted that Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told the newspaper Postimees that the change would not be noticeable to the general public but would expand NATO’s operational flexibility. “The main difference lies in the details, more specifically in the authority granted to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and to the pilots,” Pevkur said. “Naturally, we cannot go into those details, but the new arrangement will ensure greater flexibility and faster response times.” The “details” likely involve a looser set of rules of engagement for NATO encounters with Russian aircraft transiting between St. Petersburg and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave than those that govern the air-policing mission.
