Russian military jets were caught prowling off the Alaskan coast on Wednesday, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command .
“NORAD detected, tracked, and intercepted two Russian military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Sept. 11, 2024. NORAD fighter jets from the United States conducted the intercept,” NORAD posted on X.
“The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace. This Russian activity in the Alaska ADIZ is not seen as a threat, and NORAD will continue to monitor competitor activity near North America and meet presence with presence,” the post said.
NORAD detected, tracked, and intercepted two Russian military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Sept. 11, 2024. NORAD fighter jets from the United States conducted the intercept.
The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and…
— North American Aerospace Defense Command (@NORADCommand) September 12, 2024
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A NORAD news release noted that the ADIZ “begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security.”
The release noted that Russia routinely pokes its military nose into the Alaskan ADIZ.
NORAD said it has a “layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft to detect and track aircraft and inform appropriate actions. NORAD remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America.”
In July, a noteworthy intrusion took place when Russian planes were joined by Chinese military aircraft.
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NORAD said at the time it had “detected, tracked, and intercepted two Russian TU-95 and two PRC [Peoples Republic of China] H-6 military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on July 24, 2024,” according to ABC.
“This is the first time we’ve seen these two countries fly together like that,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said of the incident.
“They’re testing us, and that’s no surprise to any of us,” he said then, noting that U.S. forces “closely monitored these aircraft, tracked the aircraft, intercepted the aircraft, and which demonstrates that our, you know, our forces are at the ready all the time, and we have very good surveillance capabilities.”
“We will see challenges from adversaries throughout, and I don’t think that this particular point in time is any different,” Austin added.
“I think we’ll continue to see this going forward. It’s just a nature of who they are and what they do.”
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— DefenseMirror (@DefenseMirror) September 10, 2024
A U.S. official noted that the Arctic has become a new military zone of opportunity.
“Melting Arctic ice caps are opening new shipping lanes and attracting increased interest and activity from both the People’s Republic of China and Russia,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said then.
“More troubling, we’ve seen growing cooperation between the PRC and Russia in the Arctic, commercially with the PRC being a major funder of Russian energy exploitation in the Arctic and increasingly militarily with Russia and China conducting joint exercises off the coast of Alaska,” she said.
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