Nato fighter jets intercepted a Russian military transport aircraft flying over the Baltic Sea on Monday.

The Russian AN-22 transport had its transponder switched off. The transponder receives radio signals from radar and sends back a squawk code with information about the aircraft’s position, altitude and identification. Without the squawk code, the aircraft appears as an unidentified radar blip. Essentially, the Russian military plane was hiding itself.

A Ukrainian news source reported that nato’s Baltic air policing mission intercepted four Russian military planes in March. Two Russian bombers with their transponders turned off nearly collided with passenger planes near Ireland in February. Two Russian warplanes were intercepted on two separate occasions near the United Kingdom’s airspace this February. Those events continue the trend developed last year, when nato forces scrambled over 400 times in order to intercept Russian military planes.

To understand the significance and danger of Russia’s increasingly provocative behavior, read Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s article “Vladimir Putin Is the Prophesied Prince of Russia.”