This week the Royal Air Force (RAF) in Romania began a fifth air policing mission since 2014 on a rotational basis as part of protecting NATO's eastern flank. Six British Eurofighter “Typhoon” of the IX. Bomber squadron and around 200 soldiers from the 140th "Expeditionary Air Wing" - all from RAF Station Lossiemouth in northeast Scotland - are taking part in the four-month mission at the "Mihail Kogalniceanu" air base near the port city of Constanța in the very south-east of the country on the Black Sea. The mission: to intercept Russian aircraft approaching NATO airspace as part of a 24/7 “Quick Reaction Alert” (QRA).
„Wir“, so der britische Verteidigungsminister Grant Shapps, „zeigen damit das Ausmaß unserer Verpflichtungen gegenüber der NATO im 75. Jahr ihres Bestehens.“ „Die Royal Air Force“, ergänzt Air Commodore (Brigadegeneral) Martin Cunningham, stellvertretender Stabschef Operationen der 11. RAF Group, „ist sehr stolz, zurück in Rumänien zu sein als Teil des UK-Beitrages zur NATO und wieder mit unseren rumänischen Kameraden zusammenarbeiten zu können.“
The NATO and EU state Romania is in a special geostrategic situation: in the northeast there is a 601-kilometer-long border with the war zone of Ukraine, interrupted over a length of 683 kilometers by the border with the former Soviet Republic of Moldova, where Russians have been for some time Destabilization measures can be observed. In the northwest, Romania has a 447-kilometer-long border with its NATO and EU partner Hungary, where, however, Putin's right-wing nationalist friend Viktor Orbán is in power. In the southwest there is a 531 kilometer long border with pro-Russian Serbia. The 605 kilometer long border with southern NATO and EU neighbor Bulgaria is probably Romania's least problematic external border.
dr Gerd Portugall