MINSK. Feb 6 (Interfax) - The number of flights by Western reconnaissance and combat aircraft near Belarus' borders has substantially increased, the country's Defense Ministry said.
"I would like to note that, unfortunately, if you take a certain stretch of time, we cannot say that the intensity of military, combat reconnaissance flights has shown some trend for reduction. In fact, there has been a manifold increase in such flights," Anatoly Bulavko, the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Troops' deputy commander in charge of ideology, said on the STV channel on Monday.
"Whereas previously we were talking about 30, 50, up to 70 a month, now, last week, the figure was more than 140 flights per week," he said.
"Almost a third of these are reconnaissance aviation. Both manned and unmanned. What could it mean? It means that pilots in the adjacent [territory] are exploring airspace while reconnaissance officers (...) are watching our reaction, how we are going to react to this," he said.