Riga, Jan. 17 - Foreign countries pay a disproportionate amount of attention to Russian military planes and ships which appear near the borders of the Baltic states, ignoring the fact that sea and aerial communication routes are the only ways to supply cargo from mainland Russia to the Kaliningrad region, Russian ambassador to Latvia Alexander Veshnyakov said in an interview with BNS.
“There is also the railroad, but it crosses territories of a number of countries, which produces difficulties involving border and customs control. Therefore, even in the former times, including the Soviet times, cargos to Kaliningrad were delivered this way, and this also means that military ships and planes supply Kaliningrad-based military units. At the same time, each country which has military planes maintains them properly. Therefore, you have to know how to fly them and perform all the necessary functions,” Veshnyakov said.
Russia does not violate international law with these flights, he added.
“As concerns the criticism that the planes fly without switching on their transponders, military planes flying within corridors not crossing civilian routes absolutely don’t have to do that, according to international standards,” he said.
