Overview

• About 9,000 personnel from 17 NATO countries are taking part in Baltops, which features roughly 50 ships and 25 aircraft in two weeks of drills.
• Participants are training in scenarios that include anti-submarine warfare, mine clearance, unmanned system deployment and air-defence operations.
• German Eurofighter jets were scrambled to intercept a Russian IL-20 reconnaissance aircraft operating without identification signals over international airspace.
• Moscow has labeled the manoeuvre a provocation and responded with its own Baltic Sea exercises.
• The German Navy is grappling with an aging fleet, personnel shortages and delayed delivery of F126 frigates as it works to raise its operational ship ratio to two-thirds.