Italy ends 8-month NATO air policing mission in Baltics

The Italian Air Force detachment has ended its eight-month mission for NATO's Air Policing in the Baltic region, NATO said in a press release Friday.

The closing ceremony took place at Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania, where four Italian Eurofighter Typhoon fighters and a team of around 100 military personnel had been deployed for the last eight months since 1 January.

NATO launched the Baltic Air Policing (BAP) mission to protect Baltic skies in 2004 when Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined the Alliance.

Italy is the first NATO Ally to have supported BAP mission for a full eight months in a row and the only NATO member to have performed all NATO Interim Air Policing missions in Slovenia, Albania, Iceland and the Baltics, NATO's Allied command operation said.

During its deployment, "Italian Unit has always applied the NATO concept, flying nearly 900 hours in around 500 sorties, conducting around 40 real air intercept missions alongside 164 training missions," said the detachment commander, Colonel Vito Cracas.

Source: XINHUA