BRUSSELS. Feb 6 (Interfax) - Russian military aircraft have been accused of violating international regulations and security norms in an essentially pointless manner, Russian Permanent Representative to NATO Alexander Grushko said.
"If we take a look at the statistics of flights performed above neutral waters and we are flying above neutral waters only, we shall see that the number of flights by Russian aircraft has grown just a bit in the recent years while the number of flights by NATO aircraft doubled year-on-year to 3,000 in 2014," Grushko said.
Reconnaissance missions have been stepped up, he said.
"The ongoing campaign is an attempt to unfairly shift the blame," Grushko said.
In his words, NATO has increased the frequency of patrolling missions in the Baltic airspace and its aircrafts fly in the direct proximity to strategic Russian centers, among them St. Petersburg.
"This is a new military reality from the point of view of military potentials, and we have to pay attention to it. Speaking of regulations for flights of military aircraft, Russian warplanes perform these flights in strict compliance with ICAO norms and NATO warplanes are not using transponders either, meanwhile, flight routes are planned so that they do not hinder international commercial air traffic," the diplomat said.