Russian military officials teach their US counterparts lesson of aerial escort

 The Russian Defense Ministry suggested the Pentagon should either stop sending its reconnaissance aircraft to Russian borders or return to negotiations about the rules for the implementation of such flights.

"Russia's Air and Space Forces will continue to ensure reliable protection of Russian airspace borders," representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry said in response to recent statements from the Pentagon about the allegedly unsafe maneuver that a Russian Su-27 fighter jet performed in the vicinity of an American reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea.

"If for American pilots the realization of this fact causes depressions and phobias, we recommend the US side should either exclude the routes of such flights near Russian borders in the future or come back to negotiations to agree the rules for their implementation," a representative of the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The Pentagon, the official continued, should understand that if the Americans send their reconnaissance aircraft in the area of the Black Sea near Russian borders, they will have to meet fighter aircraft of the Russian Air Force.

"We would like to remind Mr. Bill Ellis, the commander of the 67th tactical air group of the US Sixth Fleet that Crimea is an integral part of the Russian Federation," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

New maps of Russia with correct markings of Russian borders handed over to USAF crews could be another option that the Pentagon could resort to.

"For Russian fighter aircraft, an act of "interception" of air targets as they approach the state border with their transponder off lasts for a few minutes, so the actions of the Russian Su-27, which was preventing the attempts of the US reconnaissance aircraft EP-3E Aires-II to approach Russian air space in the region of the Crimea for more than two hours and twenty minutes is called "aerial escort," the Russian military said.

Pravda.Ru

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