KYIV, Ukraine—As the NATO-Russia Council prepared to meet for the first time in almost two years, U.S. and Russian officials traded barbs over who’s to blame for a recent spike in military tensions.
The ambassadorial level meeting set for Wednesday at alliance headquarters in Brussels was to be the first time the format, which comprises NATO and Russian officials, has been convened since June 2014.
Looming over the talks are provocative Russian warplane intercepts. These include a pair of Russian Su-24 fighter jets that buzzed within 30 feet of the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea on April 11 and 12, and a Su-27 fighter jet that performed a barrel roll within 50 feet of a U.S. RC-135 spy plane on April 14.
“These kinds of planned maneuvers are especially dangerous because they bring us very close to an unplanned accident,” a former Soviet fighter pilot told The Daily Signal.
