Watch: Russian fighter jet wards off NATO warplane

There have been frequent encounters between Russian and NATO warplanes in recent years as both sides have increased the number of patrol flights amid heightened Russia-West tensions.

Moscow: Russia's state television has released a video showing a Russian fighter jet warding off a NATO warplane that approached a passenger plane carrying Russia's defence minister Sergei Shoigu.

Russia-24 television broadcast footage in which a Russian Su-27 manoeuvered to drive off an F-18 fighter that flew very close to the plane.

Shoigu was returning to Moscow after visiting Russia's westernmost Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad on Tuesday, accompanied by two Su-27 fighters.

The video showed one of the Su-27 fighters banking in the direction of the NATO jet, which veered away.

There have been frequent encounters between Russian and NATO warplanes in recent years as both sides have increased the number of patrol flights amid heightened Russia-West tensions.

Some of those encounters trigger mutual accusations of unsafe manoeuvres.