UK Summons Ambassador Over Russian Bombers

9 years ago | Posted in: Latest Politics News | 1007 Views

Britain has summoned Russia’s ambassador to explain why two Russian bombers flew over the English Channel, forcing civilian aircraft to be diverted.

British Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled on Wednesday when two Russian TU-95 ‘Bear’ long-range bombers flew near UK airspace.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said while the planes stopped short of entering British airspace, the incident was part of an “increasing pattern of out of area operations by Russian aircraft”.

A spokesperson said: “While the Russian planes did not enter sovereign UK airspace and were escorted by RAF Typhoons throughout the time they were in the UK area of interest, the Russian planes caused disruption to civil aviation.

“That is why we summoned the Russian Ambassador today to account for the incident.”

The Royal Air Force said in a statement that Typhoon fighters were scrambled from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby.

They monitored the Russian planes for more than 12 hours, until “they were out of the UK Flight Information Region”.

A British government source told Reuters the Russian move was viewed as “a significant escalation”… see more

source: skynews

Tags: , ,

Share it.

Leave a Reply

Related Posts