Merkel not acutely worried about Russian violations of airspace

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday she was not very concerned about sorties by Russian strategic bombers over the Atlantic and Black Sea and by its fighters over the Baltic which NATO said it had tracked on Wednesday. In the last few months, there had been a lot of activity in terms of Russian army exercises, said Merkel at a news conference with Slovenia's prime minister. "But I am not acutely worried that a bigger violation of airspace is taking place," she said. NATO said its jets had intercepted four groups of Russian aircraft in about 24 hours since Tuesday and described it as an unusual burst of activity at a tense time in East-West relations over the Ukraine crisis. (Reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Madeline Chambers)