Putin seems to be rebelling against NATO’s support of the Ukraine in that ongoing crisis.
Russia has been flexing its muscle quite a bit as of late, not only around the world, primarily with NATO nations, but with the U.S. as well. This past June U.S. fighter jets intercepted Russian bombers off the coast of California and Alaska.
Putin also warned the U.S. earlier this month to prepare for World War 3, which is said was ‘inevitable’.
The announcement by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu – who also stated that the patrols would occur elsewhere around the globe — came as NATO’s chief accused Russia of sending fresh troops and tanks into eastern Ukraine.
“Over the last few days, we have seen multiple reports of large convoys moving into Eastern Ukraine,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. “We assess that this significant military buildup includes Russian artillery, tanks, air defense systems and troops. His statement called the situation a “severe threat to the cease-fire.”
Moscow denied the allegation as unfounded, but Shoigu also said the dispute with the West over Ukraine would require Russia to beef up its forces in the Crimea, the Black Sea Peninsula that Russia annexed in March.
Shoigu said Russian long-range bombers will conduct flights along Russian borders and over the Arctic Ocean. He said, “In the current situation we have to maintain military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.”
Shoigu would not say how frequent the patrol missions would be or offer any other specifics, but he noted that the increasing pace and duration of flights would require stronger maintenance efforts and that relevant directives have been issued to industries.
He said the Russian air force’s long-range planes also will conduct “reconnaissance missions to monitor foreign powers’ military activities and maritime communications.”
Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers were making regular patrols across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans during Cold War times, reaching areas from which nuclear-tipped cruise missiles could be launched at the United States. But that stopped in the post-Soviet economic meltdown.
The bomber patrol flights have resumed under President Vladimir Putin’s tenure, and they have become even more frequent in recent weeks, with NATO reporting a spike in Russian military flights over the Black, Baltic and North seas as well as the Atlantic Ocean.
Earlier this year, Shoigu said that Russia plans to expand its worldwide military presence by seeking permission for navy ships to use ports in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for replenishing supplies and doing maintenance. He said the military was conducting talks with Algeria, Cyprus, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Seychelles, Vietnam and Singapore.
Shoigu said Russia also is talking to some of those countries about allowing long-range bombers to use their air bases for refueling.
Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, said the bomber patrols are part of Kremlin’s efforts to make the Russian military “more visible and more assertive in its actions.”
The new bomber flights “aren’t necessarily presaging a threat,” Kearns said. “They are just part of a general ramping-up of activities.”
But, he added, “The more instances you have of NATO and Russian forces coming close together, the more chance there is of having something bad happening, even if it’s not intentional.”
On Monday, the European Leadership Network issued a report that found a sharp rise in Russian-NATO military encounters since the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea, including violations of national airspace, narrowly avoided midair collisions, close encounters at sea, harassment of reconnaissance planes, close overflights over warships, and Russian mock bombing raid missions.
Three of the nearly 40 incidents, the think tank said, carried a “high probability” of causing casualties or triggering a direct military confrontation: a narrowly avoided collision between a civilian airliner and a Russian surveillance plane, the abduction of an Estonian intelligence officer, and a large-scale Swedish hunt for a suspected Russian submarine that yielded no result.
In September, the report said, Russian strategic bombers in the Labrador Sea off Canada practiced cruise missile strikes on the U.S. Earlier this year, in May, the report said, Russian military aircraft approached within 50 miles of the California coast, the closest such Russian military flight reported since the end of the Cold War.
And are we flying over their coast?
Jesse Kotek, you’ve got to be kidding
because our potus is a wimp muslim
This is nothing new. Putin would like to think he’s the first.Krueschef was doing it in the 60’s. I have a photo ( somewhere) of onr of our F-14’s tucked underneath a TU-95 Bear to prevent them from taking photoes. Really pizzed the Ruskies off.
NAFTA sold off our basic industrial equipment. Entitlements undermined our basic social structures. Over spending is impoverishing us. We are no longer a first world nation, things like this are going to continue to happen.
Let US do the same to them,,,, then see what happens.
Lock the missiles on them.
no worse then mexico flying their helicopters here nad fireing at ameircna border patrols