That’s right. The Russians do it to the United States. They do it to England. They’ve done it to Norway. And they’re still doing it to Japan. From Agence France-Presse:
TOKYO — Japan scrambled two dozen military aircraft and lodged a protest, accusing a Russian strategic bomber of entering its airspace over the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo Saturday.
Russia denied the incursion, but the Japanese foreign ministry said it lodged a strong protest with the Russian embassy in Tokyo over the incident, which followed stepped up Russian long-range air patrols over the Atlantic.
“We have asked the Russian government to make a thorough investigation into the matter,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.
The Tupolev Tu-95 bomber, which dates to the Soviet era, flew over the rocky isle of Sofugan, 650 kilometres (406 miles) south of Tokyo, for about three minutes from 7:30 am (2230 GMT Friday), the defence ministry said.
The air force scrambled 24 planes, including F-15 fighters and an E-767 radar plane, the defence ministry said.
They gave “a notice, then a warning and another a notice and a warning [sic],” a defence ministry statement said. “There was no response.”
The Russian bomber then flew back north towards the Russian island of Sakhalin, it said.
Man, I missed this kind of fun stuff.
This kind of thing was commonplace during the Cold War, but stopped when the Russian military ran out of money in the ‘90s. But they’re back now and flexing their muscles. Says the AFP article:
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in August the resumption of long-range flights in international air space which were abandoned in 1992 amid financial difficulties that followed the Soviet collapse.
The Tu-95 MS was among the planes included in the patrols, which were seen aimed at another attempt by Putin to boost Russian prestige as his presidential term draws to a close.
In the lead-up to Putin’s announcement, Russian bombers made increasingly frequent flights near US territory. Britain and Norway were scrambled last summer after Tu-95 bombers were spotted close to Norwegian airspace.
You’ve got to love it. I did a little YouTube search this morning and dug up a cool video about the TU-95 “Bear” strategic bomber. From Russia Today:
What do they do if they have to poop on one of those 10-hour flights? Do they turn the by-product into strategic bombs?
Bomb bay doors open….
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