conflict
Moscow: passenger plane evades NATO aircraft
A Ukrainian soldier is in a shelter ready to fire with a machine gun. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP / dpa / archive
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The situation between Ukraine and Russia is tense. Both accuse each other of preparing military intervention. Now there has been an incident.
In the midst of the tense situation in the Ukraine conflict, Russia has warned of incidents in the airspace.
A passenger plane of the state airline Aeroflot had to change its flight altitude on the way from Tel Aviv to Moscow over the Black Sea because of a NATO reconnaissance aircraft, the Russian aviation authority said to the news agency Interfax. The machine with 142 people on board went down 1,800 meters to prevent a collision.
According to the Russian authorities, the crew of the NATO CL-600 aircraft did not react. An increase in the number of flights by NATO aircraft in the region posed risks for civil aircraft, according to the authority. At first there was no statement from NATO.
Russia with troops deployed
The already tense situation between Ukraine and Russia has worsened after reports of massive Russian troops deploying near the Ukrainian border. The Kremlin, in turn, accuses Ukraine of having deployed more than 120,000 soldiers on the line to the pro-Russian separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Both countries accuse each other of preparing military intervention.