generalspeaking

Nice You Could Drop By!

"The indications are that they are returning home. They may well just want to tease us a little by having a look at the [NATO] exercise."
"We will have to see what they do when they get up there. If they are outside territorial waters they are really within their rights to do whatever they want."
British naval sources

They're popping up everywhere around the world, in the skies on the high seas, from Alaska to Australia, as though provoking speculation, and thumbing their proverbial noses at other nations' nervous responses to seeing Russian planes and warships where they might least be expected to be present. Japan has recently had the pleasure of scrambling to meet Russian planes. The Moscow Times two days ago reported that Japan's air force responded to Russian bombers over its northern skies hundreds of times in 2014.


And recently Britain's Armed Forces were also called out at opposite ends of the country this week to meet Russian warplanes while NATO exercises commenced in northern Scotland. Russian bombers near the Scottish coast were met by Royal Air Force Typhoons, and the British Navy was called on for the purpose of escorting a Russian warship through the English Channel.


The two-week-long North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Exercise Joint Warrior, observed as it is by Moscow's military experts, also had two unexpected guests whose presence launched two quick-reaction Typhoon jets from RAF Lossiemouth after Tupolev Tu-95 bear bombers left Norway airspace to approach British airspace near Scotland, to shadow the Russian bombers which then turned back northward.

"They often send some long-range aviation at the time of Joint Warrior (NATO exercises), and they haven't been here for a couple of months, so it's good to have them back", an airforce source said with equanimity, the usual British aplomb suitable for all occasions. The NATO exercises come complete with 55 warships and 70 aircraft representing 14 member nations taking part in submarine hunting training, mine clearing and amphibious landings.

A Russian destroyer and two support ships escorted through the English Channel by the Royal Navy completed the unexpected visits. The Udaloy-class destroyer Severomorsk, a tanker and a tug plowed through the waterway, then moved into the Atlantic to conduct their own drills. In the process delivering a not entirely-oblique message that spells out an 'anything you can do we can do better', type of alert, in case anyone wasn't noticing.

HMS Argyll, a Type 23 frigate, has been tasked to the escort of the Severomorsk through the North Sea to sail beyond Scotland, according to Navy sources. The convoy, according to the Russian Ministry of Defence, including the Severomorsk anti-submarine ship, a Dubna-class tanker, and the SB-406 rescue tug, entered the English Channel en route to northern Atlantic exercises.

^{HMS Argyll}   HMS Argyll, a Type 23 frigate, will escort the Severomorsk through the North Sea until she sails beyond Scotland, Navy sources said.

"[The Channel is a] legitimate shipping lane: Equally, these things aren't done by accident. Russia is trying to show it has got full spectrum capability warfare"
"It is not a prelude to war but it is a reminder that Russia likes to remind us of - that it is a power to be reckoned with, not a fading power, which might be closer to the reality"
"It can tell us that with a degree of braggadocio." 
James Nixey, head, Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House

Yes, yes indeed; and duly noted.

Labels: Armaments, Britain, NATO, Russia

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, April 18, 2015