FACED WITH RUSSIAN THREAT NATO flexes military muscle in North Sea

NATO flexed its muscles in the North Sea this week in a display of military might, as Russia allegedly tested the alliance's defenses on its eastern flank.

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F-18 fighter jets lined up on the world’s largest aircraft carrier, flanked by 20 ships and with some 10,000 military personnel from 13 countries.

US destroyers and French and Danish frigates escorted the giant USS Gerald R. Ford on the high seas as part of NATO's Neptune Strike 25-3 exercise.

F-35 and F-18 jets flew overhead in a diamond formation behind an E-2 Hawkeye, in a demonstration of their capabilities and to test their coordination at a time of high tension with Moscow.

One day before the exercise, a Russian reconnaissance aircraft flew three times over the German frigate Hamburg at "very low altitude" in the Baltic Sea on September 21, according to the German defense ministry.