Between Decemeber 22 last year and January 11, 2015 NATO's interceptors based in Lithuania, Estonia and Poland did not scramble a single time to intercept Russian military planes flying close to the borders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
That marks a notable difference to the trend in October and November when NATO jets were scrambling on an almost daily basis and intercepts included large formations of Russian nuclear bombers.
NATO fighter-jets were scrambled about 150 times in 2014 to escort Russian military airplanes, a threefold increase on 2013. The majority of flights were above the Baltic Sea to and from the Russian Kaliningrad region.
NATO fighter-jets guarding the Baltic skies are deployed in Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.
On January 8 four MiG-29 fighters of the Polish Air Force landed at the Lithuanian Air Force Base at Šiauliai to join the Baltic Air Policing Mission, reinforcing an Italian air contingent
Italian troops deployed in Šiauliai with four Eurofighter Typhoon fighters jets to take charge as the current rotation of the NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission on January 1, 2015.
The current rotation carried out by the Italian-Polish contingent is the 37th rotation since the beginning of the mission.
Fighters of the NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission are also deployed in Estonia and Poland, so the current rotation of the mission will also be carried out by the Spanish with Eurofighter Typhoons from the Amari Air Base in Estonia and Belgian soldiers with F-16s from Malbork, Poland.
The rise in Russian military activity following Russia's semi-covert intervention in Ukraine has seen NATO allies contributing additional air assets to the NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission since April 2014.
