South Korea claims air violation by Russians led to warning shots
● Moscow denies Seoul’s account of jets opening fire to deter military plane
South Korean air force jets fired 360 rounds of warning shots yesterday after a Russian military plane twice violated their airspace off the country’s east coast, Seoul officials said in an announcement that was quickly disputed by Russia.
South Korea said three Russian military planes – two Tu-95 bombers and one A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft – entered the South’s air defence identification zone off its east coast before the A-50 intruded into South Korean airspace.
Russia said later that two of its TU-95MS bombers were on a routine flight over neutral waters and didn’t enter South Korean territory.
According to South Korewarning an government accounts, an unspecified number of South Korean fighter jets, including F-16s, scrambled to the area and fired ten flares and 80 rounds from machine guns as warning shots.
Seoul defence officials said the Russian reconnaissance aircraft left the area three minutes later but returned and violated South Korean airspace again for four minutes.
The officials said the South Korean fighter jets then fired ten flares and 280 rounds from machine guns as warning shots.
South Korea said it was the first time a foreign military plane had violated their airspace since the end of the 195053 Korean War.
The foreign ministry and the joint chiefs of staff summoned russia’s acting ambassador and its defence attache to protest.
Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement that its planes did not enter South Korean airspace.
It also said South Korean fighter jets didn’t fire any shots, though it said they flew near the Russian planes in what it called “unprofessional manoeuvres” and posed a threat.
“If the Russian pilots felt there was a security threat, they would have responded,” the statement said.
South Korea’s presidential national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, told top Russian security official Nikolai Patrushev that South Korea views Russia’s airspace violation “very seriously” and will take “much stronger” measures if a similar incident occurs, according to South Korea’s presidential office.
The former Soviet Union supported North Korea and provided the country with weapons during the Korean War, which killed millions.
In 1983, a Soviet air force fighter jet fired an air-to-air missile at a South Korean passenger plane that strayed into Soviet territory, killing all 269 people on board. Relations between Seoul and Moscow gradually improved, and they established diplomatic ties in 1990, a year before the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The airspace that South Korea says the Russian warplane violated is above a group of South Korean-held islets roughly halfway between South Korea and Japan that have been a source of territorial disputes between the two Asian countries. Russia isn’t part of those disputes.
Japan, which claims ownership over the islets, protested to South Korea for firing warning shots over Japanese airspace. South Korea later countered that it cannot accept the Japanese statement, repeating that the islets are South Korean territory. Japan also protested to Russia for allegedly violating Japanese airspace.
South Korea said the three Russian planes entered their air defence identification zone with two Chinese bombers.
South Korea said the Chinese planes didn’t intrude upon their airspace.
The Russian statement accused South Korean aircraft of trying to hamper the flights of Russian jets before “a vague missile defence identification area” that it said South Korea unilaterally defined.
Russia said it had raised its concerns about the zone before.