Canadian fighter jets edge closer to Russia

OTTAWA -- Canadian fighter jets will be patrolling the edge of Russian airspace next week as part of NATO's response to the unravelling situation in Ukraine.
At least four of the six CF-18s sent overseas by the Harper government earlier this year have arrived at Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania, where they will fly air policing missions over the Baltic states.
The formal handover of responsibility is expected to take place early next week.



The Canadian jets will be working alongside fighters from Portugal, Germany and Belgium, which will be carrying out flights from bases in another Baltic state.
The missions are meant to reassure European allies unnerved by Russia's seizure of the Crimean Peninsula, as well as the military action currently unfolding in eastern Ukraine.
The jets, which had been based in Romania on a training exercise, are tasked with defending Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian airspace because those countries are unable to do so on their own.
The deployment comes against the unfolding backdrop of heavy fighting and an apparent Russian invasion, and brings Canadian fighters as close to Russian territory as they've been since the crisis began.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called an urgent session of the national security council on Thursday after two columns of Russian tanks reportedly entered the country's southeast earlier in the day.
"Destabilization of the situation and panic, this is as much of a weapon of the enemy as tanks," Poroshenko told the security council, according to the Interfax news agency.
Russia's latest escalation is an outrage that will have repercussions, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said as he called on President Vladimir Putin's regime to halt its apparent invasion, as well as the flow of arms to separatists.
The Harper government will review what further sanctions and other measures can be taken, Baird said, but he stopped short of specifics about what sort of response could be expected.
Last spring, Prime Minister Stephen Harper described the annexation of Crimea as a "slow-motion invasion" of Ukraine. Baird said the events of the last few days indicate the Russians have accelerated their efforts.
"This is absolutely unacceptable, irresponsible and absolutely reckless," he said in a conference call from Zagreb, Croatia.


Read more: www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canadian-fighter-j...981146#ixzz3BiWXW62B

Nice to Canada owns Fighter Jets!

russian made ??  ::LOL::

Here they are Ketch.  About to take off and make the skies a more peaceful place for anyone not Russian. ::LOL::

These planes are the ultra modern    F 35

That's right Kwami.  Hitler Harper's multi-billion dollar state of the art fighter jets.

That is Stephen Harper and Peter McKay when they were buddies  ::LOL::

Peter is now in Justice ;

                             

making canada safe from nuclear attack :-[

canada doing america's dirty work

Big Cat , I doubt IF a half dozen planes can do that 

They there yet