"Last week, NORAD visually identified Russian aircraft operating in and around US air defense identification areas," said Major Beth Smith, spokesman for US Northern Command and the Northern Aerospace Defense Command. America.
The peak of these alleged training activities was recorded in just 10 days, when Russian strategic bombers carried out at least 16 raids in the air defense zones of the north-western United States. They were identified as Tu-95 Bear-H, and prompted US interceptors to take off immediately in scramble.
Furthermore, during a raid by bombers in Alaskan airspace, a Russian reconnaissance aircraft was detected along with the Tu-95. Aerial penetrations have taken place mainly along the Alaskan air defense identification zone, on the Aleutian Islands and the continental part of the United States, and a raid is pounced in the air defense zone of Canada.
With long-range aviation overflights at the coasts of the United States, Russia has increased activities, especially in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Canada and the West Coast, and this is part of an implementation program on strategic nuclear forces of the Russian Federation.
The modernization includes: missiles, strategic submarines and new long-range bombers.
The Washington Free Beacon magazine, the June 9, had already reported two Bear raiders within the 50 miles from the coast of California. In fact, they have been hired by radar to acquire targets, at a shorter distance from US shores since the end of the Cold War. In this case, to make them withdraw from their intent, he provided an F-15, which had immediately intercepted them.
In the recent past, the raids of Russian bombers were classified as non-threatening, and included in the conciliatory policy of the US administration aimed at facilitating more valid political and economic ties with Moscow, but now it seems that Russian strategic nuclear forces try to test the reaction of the US air defense and, above all, the command and control systems. Therefore, based on the number of penetrations, they lost the connotation of training missions, as Admiral Cecil Haney, commander of the United States Strategic Command, who claims that Russian nuclear operations coincide with the recent tensions on the Ukraine, and if air raids in the vicinity of US airspace are correlated with the testing of six cruise-missile launches, and with the previous incursions of Russian strategic aircraft close to the identification areas of Japan and Korea, these become identifiable as a show of strength.
Giovanni Caprara
(photo: MoD Russian Federation)
