German air force sends fighter jets to escort Russian military plane over Baltic Sea

The German air force on Tuesday scrambled fighter jets to identify and escort a Russian military aircraft flying without a transponder signal close to Germany's Baltic island of Ruegen, it said in a post on social media platform X.

Its jets set off from Laage in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, identifying the Russian aircraft in international airspace, and accompanying it for a short time before it turned back east, the post said.

The IL-20M military aircraft was flying without a transponder signal over the Baltic Sea, it said.