Unnamed officials claimed that a Russian crew member aboard one of the Tu-95s Bear Bombers said, “Good morning American pilots, we are here to greet you on your Fourth of July Independence Day”.
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Earlier this year, the Pentagon considered, and then rejected, the idea of stopping routine intercepts of Russian military aircraft flying off the coast of Alaska, because the U.S. intercept flights appeared to have limited deterrent or intelligence value, U.S. defense officials told CNN.
Though a NORAD spokesman stopped short of declaring the move a threat, he did call it “potentially destabilizing”, because the Russian Tu-95 “Bear” bombers have nuclear capabilities and had not previously announced their intent to fly so close to U.S. soil.
“The pattern of Russian provocative bomber flights is unsafe because it reflects a Russian view that nuclear attack threats can and should be used to get their way on whatever they are attempting to achieve”, he said.
Russian Federation has in recent years piloted air and seacraft into identification zones in places like the United Kingdom and Sweden. But they couldn’t say what country the vessel belonged to.
“These are nuclear-capable bombers and that is a big problem”, the official said, as reported by Free Beacon.
He stressed that such behaviour of Russian bombers able to carry nuclear weapons was a reestablishment of Cold War principles. The U.S. fighters tracked them until they turned around.
It all started around the ’40s when Russian Tu-4, flying to Greenland and Alaska, were greeting U.S. B-29 and B-50 at the coasts.
The bombers off California flew roughly 40 miles from the state’s Central Coast, the NORAD spokesman said.
That encounter was more unusual as Russian planes don’t often venture that far south, a U.S. military official told CNN a few days afterward. Russian Federation conducted a similar flight off the West Coast on July 4 in 2012.
Either Obama has finally made a decision to give Putin a strong response by appointing people who could actually deter Mr Putin’s growing appetite, or Obama is appointing such “mouthy” officials just for show to make it look like the President is doing something in order to finish his presidential term in peace.
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Though the message by the two Russian bombers seem be simple and light-hearted, American defense officials believe that there is more to the message than what meets the eye. Two F-15 fighters intercepted the Russian aircraft.
