Russia Orders Long-Range Bomber Patrols
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he had ordered the military to resume regular long-range flights of strategic bombers, a show of Russia’s resurgent military power which comes amid a chill in relations with the United States.
Speaking after Russian and Chinese forces completed major war games exercises for the first time on Russian turf, Putin said a halt in long-range bombers’ flights after the Soviet collapse had affected Russia’s security as other nations had continued such missions—an oblique reference to the United States.
“I have made a decision to resume regular flights of Russian strategic aviation,” Putin said in televised remarks. “We proceed from the assumption that our partners will view the resumption of flights of Russia’s strategic aviation with understanding.”
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the U.S. was not troubled by the Russian decision.
“We certainly are not in the kind of posture we were with what used to be the Soviet Union,” said the spokesman, Sean McCormack. “It’s a different era. If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again, that’s their decision.”
The Russian-Chinese war games, which took place near the Ural Mountain city of Chelyabinsk, coincided with Russian air force maneuvers involving strategic bombers which ranged far over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.
Putin said that 20 Russian bombers were involved in the exercise.
“Starting today, such tours of duty would be conducted regularly and on the strategic scale,” Putin said. “Our pilots have been grounded for too long, they are happy to start a new life.”
Soviet bombers routinely flew such missions to areas from which nuclear-tipped cruise missiles could be launched at the United States, but stopped in the post-Soviet economic meltdown.
“Starting in 1992, the Russian Federation unilaterally suspended strategic aviation flights to remote areas,” Putin said. “Regrettably, other nations haven’t followed our example. That has created certain problems for Russia’s security.”
Booming oil prices have allowed Russia to sharply increase its military spending.
In recent years, Russia’s bombers have resumed flights to areas off Norway and Iceland, as well as Russia’s northeast corner, across the Bering Strait from Alaska several years ago. However, such missions have been rare, and Putin’s statement signals that they would become more frequent.
The announcement comes amid a growing chill in the U.S.-Russian relations, strained over Washington’s criticism of Russia’s democracy record, Moscow’s strong criticism of U.S. missile defense plans and differences over global crises.
“This is a significant change of posture of Russian strategic forces,” Alexander Pikayev, a senior military analyst with the Moscow-based Institute for World Economy and International Relations, told The Associated Press. “It’s a response to the relocation of NATO forces closer to Russia’s western border.”
Earlier this month, a pair of Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers approached the Pacific Island of Guam—home to a major U.S. military base—for the first time since the Cold War.
Last month, two similar bombers briefly entered British air space but turned back after British fighter jets intercepted them. Norwegian F- 16s were also scrambled when the Tu-95s headed south along the Norwegian coast in international air space.
Russian Air Force spokesman Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky said that Friday’s exercise involved Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M bombers, tanker aircraft and air radars. NATO jets were scrambled to escort the Russian aircraft over the oceans, he said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
As of the beginning of this year, Russia had 79 strategic bombers, according to data exchanged with the United States under the START I arms control treaty. At the peak of the Cold War, the Soviet long- range bomber fleet numbered several hundred.
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Nothing more than desperate empty posturing. These old dinosaurs are so inefficient in modern nuclear warfare so as to be completely obsolete. The most basic air defense system could eliminate all of them. The Russians would be better off selling them to collectors and for transport.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:09 amWell … Isn’t that SPECIAL!!!!????!!!!!
August 17th, 2007 at 10:31 amWow!!! Im scared! Old bombers from the 80′’s…man oh man, and they got propellers on them too…geez I gues the B-2 and B-1 are toooo slow for them! LOL!! Them Russians make me laugh!
August 17th, 2007 at 10:38 amPutin wants to try and be a player..Putin is supposed to be term-limited, bets on that changing and Putin remaining President for life.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:38 amChilling! Something is in the air with Russia and Iran. We really need to keep a look out of those two aligning themselves together. I never did like Putin. Who can trust an ex KGB man. He no doubt wants to return to the glory days and the people of Russia are following blindly.
If any of you have ever read Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future. Then you will see the very frightening similarities.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:53 amHey, if it gets russian national pride and birth rates up, fine with me. I think we run similar flights to test our stuff. And think of it this way, the more they test the bombers, the more practice we get intercepting. I am fine with the russians beefing up a little, they won’t get big enough to threaten us, but maybe they will do something about the stinking Chechens.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:55 amVlad the little Cossack is trying to be a “big man” on the world scene. Flexing his puny muscles, as if the Russian bear were not the cub cadet that they really are.
Impressive….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……
August 17th, 2007 at 11:01 amUncle Sam:
“Bombers from the 80’s”, nothin……the bomber shown in that pic is from the early 50’s.
They wouldn’t even provide a decent “practice” target for our forces!
August 17th, 2007 at 11:02 am“Wow!!! Im scared! Old bombers from the 80′’s”
Doesn’t really matter how old they are, you have heard of the B-52 right? The Russian bombers can still reach most parts of the world and can deliver a nuclear warhead.
Anyways, Putin just wants to show that the Russian military is not just going to die as America and China continue putting a lot into their militaries.
August 17th, 2007 at 11:36 amSo this has nothing to do with are future plans in dealing with Iran???? Are these planes a threat???
August 17th, 2007 at 12:21 pmAll i can say is here we go again..but while these assholes were sleeping we were building new planes, air defenses, long range missiles, missile defense systems etc. i could on all day..oh yeah and we have been using them ha! good luck Russia
August 17th, 2007 at 12:27 pm[…] Pat Dollard, “Russia Orders Long-Range Bomber Patrols” […]
August 17th, 2007 at 12:31 pmWhatever.
August 17th, 2007 at 2:16 pmWould sure look better as another pile of useless junk piled up somewhere. Kind of like the treatment we gave to thier T-72, T-80 and BMP’s. Good opportunity to give the scavengers in the third world something to take home.
August 17th, 2007 at 3:29 pmKeep in mind that Russia’s greatest threat to the USA is not their own use of the weapons they make but the indiscriminate selling to all enemies hostile to the USA. This includes nuclear technology. China is far wars but they are from the same side of the coin.
Russia and China’s real greatest threat is not from military hardware put from human intelligence and agents. Do you think the infiltration of the MSM and the DEMS with communist ideologies is an accident?
Deception and Demoralization of the West.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:46 pmhttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=915448763957391352
Sometimes Putin just tries too hard. It’s kind of… sad.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:50 pmI bet you could put one of these babies on a cruise missle today launched from Putin’s Long-range Bombers Patrols
Click or paste to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxD44HO8dNQ&NR=1
August 17th, 2007 at 9:07 pmThey may be ‘old and slow”…
But they still can carry ‘nucular bombs’.
Anything Russia does…Just like Iran… cannot be taken at face value….they will all lie at drop of a hat.
Peace!
August 17th, 2007 at 9:22 pmDan