 Three Russian aircraft intercepted over the Baltic Sea. British and German warplanes have intercepted two Russian jets and a spy plane caught flying without transponder signals over the Baltic Sea. The German Air Force shared pictures of the encounter with several images capturing the two Sukhoi Su-27 fighter aircraft and one Ilyushin 11-20 aircraft in flight. According to the independent newspaper, two NATO members were alerted and Eurofighter jets were sent to identify the military aircraft. Reconnaissance flights intercepted. German and British Eurofighters were alerted to identify three military aircraft. The German Luftwaffe wrote on Twitter. The two Su-27 flankers and an Il-20 from Russia were flying again without transponder signals in international airspace over the Baltic Sea. It comes amid heightened tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russian military aircraft regularly fly from mainland Russia to Kalingrad and back, meaning that such encounters are fairly routine in the region. Germany handed over responsibility for NATO's Baltic Air Policing Mission to the UK earlier this month. NATO Allies pitch in to protect the airspace there because Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia do not have their own fighter jets. The Norwegian Air Force said it had similarly identified a group of Russian military aircraft in international airspace over the Barents Sea to the north of the country.