RAF fighters are scrambled to face Russian bombers
THE Ministry of Defence has said Royal Air Force fighter jets were scrambled yesterday to respond to two Russian Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers “approaching the UK area of interest”.
In a statement, the MoD said: “Quick Reaction Alert Typhoon fighters based at RAF Lossiemouth & Coningsby were scrambled today against unidentified aircraft approaching the UK area of interest.
“Subsequently we intercepted and escorted two Russian Tu-160 Blackjack, long-range strategic bomber aircraft.”
The Russian bombers did not enter UK airspace.
The Russian Ministry of Defence had said on Thursday that its aircraft, of the same type as were intercepted on Friday, had conducted a patrol over Belarusian airspace.
Russia has also sent paratroopers to Belarus in a show of support for its ally amid tensions over an influx of migrants at the border with Poland.
The Russian Defence Ministry said as part of joint war games Russian troops will parachute from Il-76 transport planes in Belarus’s Grodno region, which borders Poland.
The Belarusian military said the exercise involving Russian paratroopers was intended to test the readiness of the allies’ rapid response forces due to an “increase of military activities near the Belarusian border”.
Earlier this week, Moscow sent its nuclear-capable strategic bombers on patrol missions over Belarus for two days.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, said the flights came in response to a massive build-up on the Polish-Belarusian border.
Russia has strongly supported Belarus amid a tense stand-off this week as thousands of migrants and refugees, most from the Middle East, gathered on the Belarusian side of the border with Poland in the hope of crossing into western Europe.
The European Union has accused Belarus’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, of encouraging illegal border crossings as a “hybrid attack” to retaliate against EU sanctions on his government for its crackdown on domestic protests after his disputed 2020 re-election.
Belarus denies the allegations but says it will no longer stop refugees and migrants from trying to enter the EU.
Mr Lukashenko has stressed the need to boost military co-operation in the face of what he has described as aggressive actions by Nato allies.
But Nato has said it “strongly condemns” the “irregular migration artificially created by Belarus”, amid tensions at the border with Poland.
In a statement, Nato said: “The North Atlantic Council strongly condemns the continued instrumentalisation of irregular migration artificially created by Belarus as part of hybrid actions targeted against Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia for political purposes.’’