Starting on Sunday, four Polish Russian-made MIG-29 aircraft will be based at Zokniai in northern Lithuania for three months, with six pilots and a technical staff of about 70.

They will replace a US team.

Since the three Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- joined NATO in March 2004, NATO member states have taken it in turn to patrol Baltic airspace.

Poland, which joined in 1999 with the Czech Republic and Hungary, is due to take delivery next year of the first 16 of 48 multi-purpose US-made F-16s it has bought for 3.5 billion dollars.