MOSCOW — NATO fighter jets confronted a plane carrying Russia’s defense minister in neutral airspace over the Baltic Sea on Wednesday morning before being chased away by a Russian warplane.

NATO confirmed the face-off, but denied acting aggressively or knowing that the defense minister was on board.

The confrontation was the latest of many over the Baltics, a heavily militarized area where Russian and NATO jets regularly jostle. The high-altitude encounter raised new fears about the possibility of an aerial conflict — whether intentional or accidental — during a time of particularly high tensions between Moscow and the West.

On Sunday, the American military shot down a Syrian warplane, the first time it had done so since Syria’s civil war began in 2011. The next day, Moscow issued a stark warning, threatening to target aircraft flown by the United States and its allies west of the Euphrates River, and suspending use of a hotline that the American and Russian militaries have used to avoid collisions in Syrian airspace. Also on Monday, a Russian jet flew within several feet of an American reconnaissance plane over the Baltics.