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Russia’s military said Wednesday that it scrambled a Su-27 fighter jet to prevent three British warplanes from entering Russian airspace over the Black Sea.
A Su-27 identified the “three air targets” as a U.K. Royal Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft and two Typhoon fighter planes, Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“As the Russian fighter jet approached, the foreign military aircraft made a U-turn away from the state border of the Russian Federation,” the statement read, adding that the intercept “prevented” the British aircraft from “trespassing” into Russian territory.
The Russian military described a nearly identical confrontation of its Su-27 jets with British warplanes over the Black Sea in October of last year.
Similar intercepts between Russian military planes and those of NATO member countries have occurred in the airspace surrounding Russia even before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, though the Black Sea has emerged as a key theater in the Ukrainian war.
NATO suspended relations with Russia following its 2014 annexation of Crimea, while Moscow views the alliance’s eastward expansion as a threat to national security.
