MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/. The United States must deal with the issue of unidentified balloons over its territory on its own, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, while commenting on NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s claims the unidentified balloons over the United States were an example of how China and Russia were stepping up intelligence activities against NATO countries.
"As for the balloon row, which the United States is now obsessed with, voluntarily or not, probably, it is hardly possible to blame anyone. It will be far better for the Americans to sort out the saga on their own," Peskov told the media on Tuesday.
At the same time, he stressed that NATO demonstrated its hostility towards Russia every day.
"NATO is an organization that is hostile to us. It confirms its hostility every day and tries to make its involvement in the conflict around Ukraine as clear as possible. Of course, this requires certain precautions," he added.
At the end of January, US authorities spotted a Chinese balloon over the mainland well above the commercial air routes. The balloon was of no threat to people on the ground. On February 4, the US military shot down this allegedly reconnaissance balloon within the national airspace. According to the Pentagon, the balloon was collecting sensitive information. The Chinese Foreign Ministry lodged a protest, saying that the weather-watching balloon that had lost control was a civilian one.
Last week, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) registered three more unidentified objects, two of which were shot down by the US military in the national airspace, and one more over Canada. All three objects - much smaller than the Chinese balloon - were at lower altitudes and looked very different. The last of these was destroyed over Lake Huron on the border between the US and Canada on Sunday. Its wreckage, presumably, fell into Canadian territorial waters.