Two Russian bombers violate US airspace near Alaska
The U.S. Northern Command and joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command said two Russian bombers violated U.S. airspace near Alaska during recent arctic war games.
President Barack Obama meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at his dacha outside Moscow, Russia 2009 Pete Souza photo
Disclosure by the command in charge of U.S. homeland defense followed a report in the Free Beacon quoting U.S. officials who said the Russian aircraft had threatened U.S. air space but did not cross into it and were met over the Pacific by U.S. F-15 interceptor jets.
“There was a single out-of-area patrol by two Russian long range bombers which entered the Alaska ADIZ that were visually identified by NORAD fighters,” John Cornelio, chief spokesman for Northcom, said in an email response to questions about the recent war games.
ADIZ is the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, a line of airspace surrounding Alaska used by the military to monitor aircraft threats.
On Capitol Hill, a senior House Republican expressed concern over the Russian war games.
“These latest reported actions show what the Russian Federation thinks of the ‘reset’ the Obama administration desperately continues to push,” said Rep. Michael R. Turner (R., Ohio), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee.
“Incursions into our airspace, along with their threats to attack our missile defense systems, show President Putin’s aggression in the face of President Obama’s ‘flexibility,’” said Turner.
Turner was referring to open-microphone comments made by the president during a meeting in March with then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Obama was overheard telling the Russian leader not to pressure him during the election and promising “more flexibility” in negotiations with Moscow on missile defenses after his presumed reelection.
Washington and Moscow remain at odds over U.S. and NATO plans to deploy missile defenses in Europe that Russia regards as a threat to its strategic forces and that the United States insists will be limited for use against Iranian missiles.
Why is this news so old? this happend in 2009