Britain intercepted two Russian military planes flying near its North Sea airspace

The Royal British Air Force (RAF, for its acronym in English) reported on Friday that it had intercepted two Russian military planes as they flew over their airspace in the North Sea.

RAF reconnaissance planes departed from Lossiemouth, in the north of Scotland, later supported by another aircraft to ensure refueling.

Intercepted planes are two anti-submarine warfare and maritime reconnaissance aircraft TU-142 “Bear-F”, “relic of the Cold War” which presented a danger to civilian air traffic, according to the RAF.

The Russian planes were also tracked by NATO as they flew near the North Atlantic Alliance surveillance zone.. These rapid action alerts, as they are called by the RAF, typically occur several times a year.

“Initially, our NATO colleagues kept us informed then the RAF sent its fighters directly ”, British military authorities stressed.

The episode put in “rapid reaction alert“Also to the RAF aircraft based in Romania, when pilots and other forces learned that they would be ready to act if necessary.

From April 2020, the RAF Chief of Staff, Marshal Mike Wigston, censored his Russian counterpart after the interception of two maritime patrol planes in North East Scotland, amid the strict restrictions then in place in the UK due to the pandemic.

According to some Scottish media, pilots of Russian planes did not present the flight plan and did not maintain communication with the regional air traffic control center, so they could be dangerous for other travelers.

Similar incidents frequently occur in areas under NATO surveillance, especially in the airspace of countries that do not have the necessary defense capacity to provide surveillance.

Russia and the United Kingdom had already organized a military crossing a month ago, when a Su-24 aircraft and Russian ships fired at a British destroyer which had entered Russian territorial waters of the Black Sea.

“The destroyer has received a warning. He did not react to the warning “, said the Russian Defense Ministry, which provoked a “border patrol boat” and one plane Su-24M does “warning shots”.

The British ship then left Russian waters, putting an end to the incident, which lasted about twenty minutes, according to the same source.

Then the British Army nevertheless claimed that “No warning shot was fired against the ‘HMS Defender’,” which was “in Ukrainian territorial waters,” according to a tweet from the UK Defense Ministry.

(With information from EuropaPress and AFP)

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