Russia mentioned Sunday it scrambled fighter jets to intercept two U.S. navy long-range bomber plane that approached the Russian border over the Barents Sea in the Arctic.
“The crews of the Russian fighters recognized the aerial goal as a pair of U.S. Air Drive B-52H strategic bombers,” Moscow’s protection ministry wrote on the social media platform Telegram, specifying that the planes scrambled had been MiG-29 and MiG-31 fighters.
“Because the Russian fighters approached, the U.S. strategic bombers turned away from the State Border of the Russian Federation,” the ministry mentioned.
Russia has ramped up navy operations within the Arctic Circle, together with assessments of superior hypersonic missiles. A number of years in the past, a Russian pure fuel tanker accomplished an experimental spherical journey alongside the Northern Sea Route, which connects Western Europe and the Atlantic Ocean to East Asia.
The U.S. routinely carries out flights over worldwide waters. Moscow has not too long ago responded extra aggressively to the workouts, accusing the U.S. in June of utilizing its reconnaissance drone flights over impartial waters within the Black Sea to assist Ukraine strike Russian-occupied Crimea.
Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Company by way of Getty Pictures
Final month, Moscow warned of a “direct confrontation” between Russia and NATO, and Russia’s protection minister ordered officers to arrange a “response” to U.S. drone flights over the Black Sea, in an obvious warning it could take forceful motion to keep off the American reconnaissance plane.
Washington and Moscow have clashed earlier than over the problem. In March 2023, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet broken a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone, inflicting it to crash into the Black Sea. It was the primary direct conflict between Russian and U.S. forces for the reason that Chilly Struggle.
A repeat of such a confrontation might additional gasoline tensions over the warfare in Ukraine.
In Might, a NATO supply informed Reuters that scrambles of NATO jets to intercept Russian plane over the Baltic Sea area elevated at the least 20% within the first quarter of 2024.