LONDON — A Russian fighter jet escorting the country’s defense minister “chased away” a NATO F/A-18 that came close to the government plane, according to state-run media which released dramatic video of the incident.

NATO said it scrambled an unspecified number of fighter jets after tracking the Russian plane and its escort as they flew over the Baltic Sea on Tuesday.

The planes were flying in international airspace but came “close to allied airspace,” NATO said in a statement. It said it did not know who was on board the plane, and that “once identification of the aircraft had taken place, the NATO jets returned to base.”

Video of the incident appears to show the NATO jet sharply veering away from the plane carrying Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, but only after the Russian fighter, a Sukhoi Su-27, banked toward it.

According to Zvezda, a TV channel owned and operated by the ministry, the NATO plane “tried to get close to” Shoigu’s aircraft “but the Russian Su-27 pilots pushed the fighter aircraft aside, not allowing it to come close to the airliner.”

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