NATO's air surveillance mission over the skies of the Baltic states will be temporarily based out of Latvia instead of Estonia in 2024, defence ministers from the neighbouring EU countries said on Sunday.
Fighter aircraft and personnel assigned to NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission will be stationed at Latvia's Lielvārde airfield while the Estonian military airport Ämari undergoes renovations.
The renovation work in Ämari is expected to begin next spring and should take six to eight months, Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said while in Riga to meet his Latvian counterpart.
The Baltic republics lack air defences and do not field air forces, relying on fellow NATO members to patrol their airspace close to the borders with Russia and Belarus.
