The U.S. government has warned that four Russian fighter jets flew near Alaskan state airspace last Sunday, pointing out that this is a regular occurrence and is not considered a threat.
This was reported Tuesday in a statement by the Aerospace Defense Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which detected, tracked and identified four Russian aircraft within Alaska’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). The ADIZ is a country’s airspace plus an additional perimeter monitored by the Armed Forces.
«Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace. This Russian activity in the North American ADIZ occurs regularly and is not considered a threat or provocation,» NORAD added in its missive.
The United States had already anticipated this Russian activity, since since 2007, when Russia resumed its long-range aviation activity, NORAD records an annual average of six to seven interceptions of Russian military aircraft.
The discovery of these fighters — which included TU-95 BEAR-H and SU-35 aircraft — comes shortly after the United States shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon and other unidentified objects over its airspace.
It also comes as the Russian presidency has urged the U.S. government to investigate the alleged presence of balloons and other unidentified flying objects in its airspace without «blaming» other countries, after Washington’s focus on Beijing in recent days.
