This week Russian fighter jets buzzed a U.S. warship in the Baltic Sea, and the Ruskies are pulling even more bullshit, this time on one of our planes. On Thursday, a Russian fighter jet flew dangerously close to a U.S. reconnaissance plane flying in international airspace over the Baltic Sea.
The Russian aircraft, an SU-27 fighter, operated in an “unsafe and unprofessional” manner when it approached the RC-135 reconnaissance plane, the Pentagon said in a statement on Saturday. The Russian fighter jet was allegedly only 50-feet from the U.S. aircraft and then it did a barrel-roll above.
“There have been repeated incidents over the last year where Russian military aircraft have come close enough to other air and sea traffic to raise serious safety concerns, and we are very concerned with any such behavior,” the U.S. military statement said.
“People need to understand that this is serious business and the United States is not going to be intimidated,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. He added that the U.S. had “raised our concerns with the Russians.”
“I can tell you that communication has occurred, and we’ll seek to resolve our differences through well-established military channels,” Ernest said.
However, Russia’s Defense Ministry has a much different view of the situation and said the United States’ accusations are “not consistent with reality.” Russia’s defense military spokesman Maj. Igor Konashenkov said the United States overreacted, “All flights of aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces are performed strictly in accordance with the international regulations on the use of airspace over neutral waters.”
He added that the Su-27 had been dispatched after Russian air defense facilities spotted an unknown target over the Baltic Sea, approaching the Russian border at high speed.
Russia also defended the incident of Russian aircraft flying aggressively toward the USS Donald Cook. The Russian Defense Ministry claim that the Su-24 fighter jet pilots saw the ship and then turned back “while using all measures of precaution.” However, video refutes that statement as the jets flew extremely close to the destroyer.
“The principle of freedom of navigation for the U.S. destroyer, which is staying in close proximity to a Russian naval base in the Baltic Sea, does at all not cancel the principle of freedom of flight for Russian aircraft,” Konashenkov said.
C’mon Russia, why all this nonsense? Don’t you have more pressing issues to attend to, like invading some former Soviet republics or trying to figure out how to fix an economy when a barrel of your oil is only $40?