Alternate title over at Yahoo! News: Russia revives Soviet-era strategic bomber patrols
| Russia is immediately to resume the Soviet-era practice of sending strategic bombers on long-range flights well beyond its borders, President Vladimir Putin announced here on Friday. |
My take: The revival continues.
| The United States played down the Russian announcement.
“We have very good working relations with the Russians, with the Russian military,” US national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said |
Well, good deal.
| The announcement came days after Moscow said its strategic bombers had begun exercises over the North Pole and just a week after Russian planes flew within a few hundred kilometres (miles) of a US military base on the island of Guam.
On Wednesday a top US commander said that Russian bombers had been making increasingly frequent flights approaching US territory for several months. Both Britain and Norway’s air forces have taken to the skies in recent months to monitor the renewed Russian air force activity, at a time when relations with Britain are in crisis over the poisoning in London of a former Russian agent, Alexander Litvinenko. Shortly before Putin’s announcement, a Russian air force official said long-range bombers were carrying out patrol flights on Friday in various parts of the world, including the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Black Sea. |
Thankfully, they’re partners, eh?