Russian military craft stalk Latvia's sea and air borders

Latvia's National Armed Forces (NBS) tweeted news of continued spottings of Russian military activity near its sea and air borders this weekend.

On Sunday a navy vessel identified as the tugboat and supply ship Irgiz was sighted just 5 nautical miles (10 kilometers) off of Latvia's maritime border in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) waters.

This followed a tweet the previous day reporting the scrambling of Baltic Air Police (BAP) fighter jets to meet up with another Russian air force reconnaissance plane Ilyushin IL-20 that was very near Latvia's airspace over the Baltic sea.

The current tally of spotting incidents involving Russian military aircraft and sea vessels on the part of Latvia's NBS so far this year now exceeds 250, 50 of the cases being ships seen near Latvia's maritime borders and more than 200 scramblings of the BAP to intercept planes near Latvian skies over the Baltic, the Defense Ministry told LETA Monday morning.

The NBS tweets regularly to the public regarding its monitoring of Russian military activities near Latvia's frontiers. Russia has demonstrated a broad array of its armament and equipment, including destroyers, transport planes, spy planes, command planes, bombers, helicopters, frigates, corvettes, submarines and their support ships, as well as transport ships.

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