{"id":5019,"date":"2017-04-25T17:04:56","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T17:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=5019"},"modified":"2017-11-20T17:25:46","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T17:25:46","slug":"us-f-35-stealth-fighters-land-in-estonia-for-nato-drills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/us-f-35-stealth-fighters-land-in-estonia-for-nato-drills\/","title":{"rendered":"US F-35 stealth fighters land in Estonia for NATO drills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>F-35s deployed to Estonia for the first time amid heightened Russia tensions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Two U.S. Air Force\u2019s F-35 fighter jets have arrived in NATO member Estonia to take part in NATO drills as the aircraft see their first operational deployment in continental Europe.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This symbolic gesture is meant to reinforce the United States\u2019 commitment to the defense of NATO allies that border Russia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThis is a very clear message,\u201d Estonia\u2019s Defense Minister Margus Tsahkna told Reuters. \u201cThe United States is taking the show of unity very seriously,\u201d he said of the jets that are designed to avoid detection by conventional radar.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">F-35s arrive in <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Estonia?src=hash\">#Estonia<\/a>, ensuring peace and stability with our <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Estonian?src=hash\">#Estonian<\/a> allies! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AlliedStrong?src=hash\">#AlliedStrong<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mtSLSCbICp\">pic.twitter.com\/mtSLSCbICp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 USEmbassyTallinn (@USEmbTallinn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/USEmbTallinn\/status\/856823982053576708\">April 25, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.af.mil\/News\/Article-Display\/Article\/1161589\/f-35as-deploy-to-estonia-for-the-first-time\/\" target=\"_blank\">first overseas flying training deployment<\/a> for the F-35A, signifying an important milestone and natural progression of the Joint Strike Fighter Program.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe deployment has been planned for some time, has no relations to current events and was conducted in close coordination with Estonian allies,\u201d the Air Force said in a release Tuesday. \u201cIt allows the F-35A to engage in familiarization training within the European theater while reassuring allies and partners of U.S. dedication to the enduring peace and stability of the region.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Air Marshal Stuart Evans of NATO&#8217;s Allied Air Command said the F-35s will be &#8220;the fundamentals&#8221; in the military alliance&#8217;s capabilities to defend the air sovereignty of its members.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Estonia, a former Soviet republic, shares an almost 200-mile-long border with Russia.\u00a0Both Estonia and Romania are wary of Russian aggression following Moscow&#8217;s annexation of Crimea.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">F-35s will also deploy to Romania, another current NATO member and former Warsaw Pact ally of the Soviet Union, the official said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The deployment comes at a time of heightened tension with Russia after the U.S. missile strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad, an ally of Moscow.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The deployment to Estonia is part of a wider European Reassurance Initiative mission to reassure eastern NATO members who are wary of the intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin after his invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and his continued actions in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The US Air Force (USAF)\u00a0has previously deployed its Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter to Amari for this reason, and the arrival of its latest F-35A is designed to send a military and political message of United States and NATO resolve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>F-35s deployed to Estonia for the first time amid heightened Russia tensions Two U.S. Air Force\u2019s F-35 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1,125],"tags":[227,6,151,357,252,5,59,20,7],"class_list":["post-5019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","category-united-states","tag-air-force","tag-defense","tag-estonia","tag-europe","tag-f-35","tag-military","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-u-s"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/US-Estonian-and-Nato-flags.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-1iX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5019"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5023,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5019\/revisions\/5023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}