Nine U.S. fighter jets have been scrambled to intercept five Russian warplanes spotted off Alaska.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, based at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado, said it had detected and tracked two Tu-95 long-range strategic bombers, two Su-35 fighter planes, and one A-50 spy plane crossing Alaska’s coastal Air Defense Identification Zone Thursday.
NORAD said it had responded by launching two F-16s, two F-35s, one E-3, and four KC-135s to intercept the planes, positively identify them, and escort them out of the ADIZ.
The command described Russian activity in the ADIZ as a regular occurrence that is not typically considered a threat, adding that the five planes had not crossed into U.S. or Canadian airspace, according to CBS News.
Alaska’s ADIZ is the point at which American and Canadian jurisdiction ends and is a “defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security,” NORAD said.
A similar occurrence took place last September, when two Tu-95s and two Su-35s were spotted in the same zone, prompting the defense command to send out an E-3 early warning and control aircraft, followed by four F-16s and four KC-135 tanker planes to lead them clear.
NORAD said at that time that although the presence of Russian craft in the ADIZ is a common sight and non-aggressive, it could be interpreted as a test of U.S. and Nato preparedness.
A month earlier, a Cold War-era Russian IL-20 COOT military reconnaissance aircraft was spotted four times in the course of one week.
Prior to that, in September 2024, NORAD posted a short video online of a Russian jet flying just a matter of feet away one of its own planes.
Earlier that summer, Russian and Chinese planes jointly entered the ADIZ, which a U.S. defense official told CBS marked the first time Beijing had ever encroached on Alaska.
Relations between Washington and Moscow remain uneasy at present as President Donald Trump attempts to thrash out a peace deal to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, as the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of its western neighbor draws near.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted he is open to a solution to the war and met with Trump in Alaska last year, but has so far refused to commit without major territorial concessions, which Ukraine has refused to grant, to the evident frustration of the Americans.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has meanwhile torn into Putin after the latest round of negotiations in Geneva failed to achieve a breakthrough, dismissing his claims to the Donbas, Crimea and other disputed regions as “historical s***.”
