On Wednesday, Estonian Minister of Defence Hanno Pevkur awarded mission medals to the German Air Force personnel who participated in the mission of the Deployable Control and Reporting Centre (DCRC, callsign ’REDHAWK’) at the Estonian Ämari Air Base.
"The NATO air policing mission is a crucial part of NATO's peacetime defence posture — it demonstrates that NATO keeps the Baltic Sea airspace safe and secure. Estonia is very grateful to our German and Latvian allies for their cooperation, which allowed the air policing mission to continue to protect our airspace even during the renovation of Ämari," said Minister of Defence Hanno Pevkur at the medal ceremony. "I thank the 'REDHAWK' unit for carrying out the mission and for the high-level professionalism and dedication shown during your deployment. The extensive air defence system exercises conducted with you will help us in developing our medium-range air defence capabilities in the future."
In addition to the daily management of air operations, the DCRC conducted a general air defence course for the personnel of the air operations control centre in Tallinn and the Air Defence Wing.
Cooperation with this unit extends back many years, primarily in the form of training. This time, the exercises focused on the management of ground-based air defence systems, in light of Estonia’s goal to establish medium-range air defence capabilities.
Construction work on the Ämari runway will take place from March to November, and during this time, German Eurofighter jets will perform air policing from the Lielvarde air base in Latvia. Estonia supports Latvia in conducting air policing. Air policing will return to Ämari on 1st December with Dutch F-35s.
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