MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russian inspectors will conduct an observation flight over Greece under the Treaty on Open Skies on February 9-13, head of Russia's National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center has announced.
“Within the framework of the international Treaty on Open Skies a group of Russian inspectors plans to conduct an observation flight on a Russian Antonov An-30 aircraft over the territory of the Greek Republic," Sergei Ryzhkov said, adding that the flight will be carried out at a maximum range of 1,010 kilometers (about 628 miles).
“The observation flight is being carried out in order to promote more openness and transparency in the military activity of the treaty’s member-states,” Ryzhkov explained.
This is the first observation flight that Russia will carry out this year under the Treaty on Open Skies, which has been in force since January 1, 2002.
The treaty, signed on March 24, 1992, in Helsinki, established a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the territories of its 34 member-states, which include the majority of NATO countries, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Sweden and Finland.
