Russia’s Defense Ministry has offered NATO the chance to discuss terms for open interaction in the Baltic region to avoid any further security incidents in the area, but only on a quid-pro-quo basis.

Russian Defense Ministry has offered NATO to discuss the ways of easing tensions in the Baltic region.

Russia suggested notifying its neighbors of the scheduled military drills in the region and discussing the obligatory use of transponders, devices which emit an identifying signal in response to an interrogating received signal.

Russian military experts believe that the proposed moves will considerably ease the tensions in the skies above the Baltics which has recently witnessed considerable increase of combat aviation activities from both NATO and Russia.

Russia is ready to ensure transparency of its activities in the Baltic air but it asks for the same transparency from NATO, Sweden and Finland, whose Air Force has been increasingly active in the region since the start of the Ukrainian crisis, according to Russian newspaper Izvestiya.

Moscow has been increasingly wary of the British and American RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft flights over the Baltics with the turned off transponders. 

Back in April an American RC-135U reconnaissance aircraft was buzzed by a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet over the Baltic Sea near Russia’s Kaliningrad Region.

Pentagon then accused the Russian pilot of "coming dangerously close" to the US aircraft.