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Europeans Ready to Shoot Down Russia Jets, Hegseth Summons Top Military Brass
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7:05Now PlayingEuropean diplomats warned the Kremlin this week that NATO is ready to respond to further violations of its airspace with full force, including by shooting down Russian planes, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
At a tense meeting in Moscow, British, French and German envoys addressed their concerns about an incursion by three MiG-31 fighter jets over Estonia last week, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the talks took place behind closed doors. Following the conversation, they concluded that the violation had been a deliberate tactic ordered by Russian commanders..
Bloomberg Economics Defense Lead Becca Wasser joins Bloomberg Businessweek Daily to discuss, with anchors Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec.
Asked about the warnings, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “I don’t even want to talk about this, because it’s a very irresponsible statement,” the state-run Tass news agency reported on Friday. Responding to a query about Bloomberg’s reporting, Peskov reiterated Russia’s position that no evidence has confirmed Russian airspace violations.
NATO’s eastern members have faced a series of violations this month that have posed an unprecedented test of the alliance’s resolve at a moment when Vladimir Putin is stepping up Russian attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and US backing for Kyiv is wavering.
“The UK stands ready to robustly defend our airspace against any incursion,” a government spokesperson said.
President Donald Trump this week urged Ukraine to win back all the territory captured by Russia “with the support of the European Union” and defined the US role as selling weapons that allies could ship to the battlefield.
The account of the meeting in Moscow shows that Putin has been given a more forceful warning about the volley of jets and drones into the skies over eastern Europe and offers an insight into the brinkmanship between the two sides.
During the talks, a Russian diplomat told the Europeans that the incursions were a response to Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, the officials said. The Kremlin said those operations would not have been possible without NATO support and, as a result, Russia considers that it is already engaged in a confrontation including European nations.
The Russian side took extensive notes during the conversation, the officials said, leading the European team to speculate that they had been instructed to provide a detailed readout of the NATO position up the chain of command.
A German government official confirmed that a meeting took place and that the ambassadors told Moscow that the incursions had to stop. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday that he’s coordinating with Paris, London and Warsaw and supports “all measures necessary.”
UK and French spokespeople weren’t immediately able to comment on the meeting. President Emmanuel Macron declined to specify how NATO would respond to further incursions in an interview on France 24 on Wednesday.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Article 4, which triggers consultations over a perceived threat, has only been invoked nine times since the alliance was founded in 1949 — and two of those instances were this month, following the incursions into Poland and Estonia. Authorities in Denmark on Wednesday said they may do the same as they probe a potential Russian role in drone attacks that disrupted air traffic, although the Kremlin has again denied involvement.
“The intention is to create division and to make us scared,” Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told reporters Thursday. “The threat from hybrid attacks is here to stay.”
The sudden uptick aligns with the view from some security officials that a belligerent move from Moscow, whose war on Ukraine is well into its fourth year, would likely not come in the form of a conventional attack against the West, but rather a hybrid operation with deliberate ambiguity about its origins and motivations.
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