MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. NATO continues its aggressive activities on building up its presence near Russian border, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, commenting on reports regarding NATO’s plans to relocate AWACS early warning planes to Lithuania.

"Unfortunately, this is an already long-lasting aggressive NATO activity on building up its military presence along the Russian border. All these years-long NATO tales that they merely cooperate with other member states turned out to be, in reality, just lies. And we are well aware of what they actually do. I repeat: they build up aggressive activity along the perimeter of our country’s borders," the diplomat noted.

On Thursday, the Lithuanian Army command reported that the AWACS planes arrived at the Zoknai airbase to carry out a reconnaissance mission. The number of planes is undisclosed, but the planes were referred to in plural form. The planes were accompanied by a special military contingent of about 150 people.

Previously, NATO said in its statement that it was about to send two AWACS planes to Lithuania to monitor of Russia’s military activities near the alliance’s borders. According to the document, the planes belong to the fleet of 14 NATO observation planes based in Geilenkirchen, Germany.