NATO shows military strength in the North Sea
NATO showcased its military strength in the North Sea this week, demonstrating its capabilities amid allegations that Russia tested the alliance's defenses on its eastern flank.
F-18 fighter jets lined up on the world's largest aircraft carrier, flanked by 20 ships and with some 10,000 military personnel from 13 countries, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
US destroyers and French and Danish frigates escorted the giant USS Gerald R. Ford on the high seas as part of NATO's Neptune Strike 25-3 exercise.
F-35 and F-18 jets flew overhead in a diamond formation behind an E-2 Hawkeye, in a demonstration of their capabilities and to test their coordination at a time of high tension with Moscow.
One day before the exercise, a Russian reconnaissance aircraft flew three times over the German frigate Hamburg at "very low altitude" in the Baltic Sea on September 21, according to the German defence ministry.
"We consider this behaviour unprofessional and uncooperative," said a ministry spokesperson.
The NATO exercise began the same day that, a few hundred kilometres away, "three or four large drones" flew over Copenhagen Airport, disrupting air traffic.
These "hybrid attacks" could increase, warned Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
"We reassure our allies, and with our adversaries or others... we establish a strategic deterrent as a group, as a team," said US Rear Admiral Paul Lanzilotta, commander of Carrier Strike Group Twelve, in the vast hangar of the carrier.
Above, F-18s took off with a deafening roar, an AFP journalist on board said.
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