Su-24 planes had legal grounds to check who was approaching Russia's Baltic military base - Lavrov
MOSCOW. April 28 (Interfax) - The Russian Sukhoi Su-24 aircraft which flew over a United States destroyer in the Baltic Sea did nothing illegal, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"Our aircraft in that area were performing absolutely legitimate training flights in international airspace," he said in an interview with the Swedish Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
"They saw a U.S. destroyer with powerful weapons approaching our military base and decided to see who it was. As soon as they saw who it was - which happened within a safe distance - they turned away and continued their flight," Lavrov said.
The minister recalled that in 1972 Russia and the U.S. signed a flight safety agreement which Moscow subsequently proposed supplementing with an additional protocol, but that Washington rejected this.
"On April 20 the NATO-Russia Council met in Brussels. Our permanent representative to the Alliance, Alexander Grushko, reminded them of this during the discussion. The Americans felt awkward because they did not even know [about] it," Lavrov said.