OREANDA-NEWS By the end of this week, Russian pilots will make observation flights over the USA and Sweden within the framework of the Open Skies Treaty.

The routes of these flights were agreed in advance, with American and Swedish experts on board the aircraft. They will monitor compliance with the provisions of the contract.

One of the flights will be performed over the territory of the United States of America on a Tu-154ML aircraft. The other is over the territory of Sweden on the Russian An-30B observation aircraft.

In turn, an observation flight over Russian Federation from June 24 to 28 will be carried out jointly by France and Germany.

The Open Skies Treaty is a multilateral international treaty signed on March 24, 1992 in Helsinki by representatives of 23 member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The purpose of the treaty is to promote confidence-building between states through the improvement of mechanisms for controlling military activities and compliance with existing arms control treaties.