In Baltic skies, NATO and Russian pilots size each other up warily but without a tilt into war

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ŠIAULIAI AIR BASE, Lithuania (AP) — When NATO’s call came, the French fighter pilots scrambled with practiced urgency, already suited up to shorten their response times. They dashed in vans to hangars where their prepped and armed Rafale jets awaited, clambered into the cockpits and fired up the engines, which puffed and screamed. Within minutes of takeoff from the Šiauliai Air Base in Lithuania, they were over the Baltic Sea, first intercepting a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft and then t