Russian fighter aircraft hold combat drills over Baltic Sea

Russia has started tactical fighter jet exercises over the Baltic Sea with the goal of testing readiness to perform combat and other special operations, the country's defence ministry has said, a day after Moscow said its jets had scrambled to intercept United Kingdom military planes over the Black Sea. "The main goal of the exercise is to test the readiness of the flight crew to perform combat and special tasks as intended," Russia's defence ministry said on Tuesday. "The crews of the Su-27 [fighter jets] of the Baltic Fleet fired from airborne weapons at cruise missiles and mock enemy aircraft," the ministry announced on the Telegram messaging channel, adding that as well as improving skills, Russian fighter pilots are on "round-the-clock combat duty" guarding the air space of Russia's Kaliningrad exclave. Wedged between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic coast, Kaliningrad is Moscow's westernmost state and was part of Germany until the end of World War II. Given to the Soviet Union at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, the enclave has roughly 1 million residents – mainly Russians but also a small number of Ukrainians, Poles and Lithuanians.