The NATO air surveillance mission over the skies of the Baltic nations may have its short-term base in Latvia as an alternative of Estonia in 2024, the protection ministers of those European Union nations mentioned this Sunday. Fighter jets and personnel assigned to the Atlantic Alliance’s Baltic air surveillance mission will likely be stationed on the Latvian airfield of Lielvarde whereas the Estonian navy airport of Ämari undergoes renovation works. After finishing the restore work, the troopers will return to Estonia.
The Ämari renovation works are scheduled to begin subsequent spring and final between six and eight months, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur mentioned throughout his go to to Riga to satisfy his Latvian counterpart.
Pevkur has indicated that the short-term relocation will make it attainable to arrange the infrastructure of the navy base in Ämari, which has been in intensive use since 2014, in accordance with statements collected by the Estonian newspaper ‘Postimees’. “The Russian warfare in Ukraine has clearly proven how necessary air protection is. Cooperation with the allies and the reception of their air protection models is a prerequisite for an orderly infrastructure,” the protection minister mentioned. The Baltic republics lack air defenses and no air forces, so that they depend on NATO members to patrol their airspace close to the Russian and Belarusian borders.