The RAF has just scrambled 2 typhoon jets to shadow a Russian bomber over the North Sea, isn't this?

Question

a provocative action?

Answer 1

The RAF would have a hard job to chase the Russians in "Typhoon's" they were propeller driven aircraft of WW2 vintage!!

You will also note that the Norwegian Airforce had been following them first and there was no chance of a "sneak attack" this going back to playing cat and mouse as in the cold war days.

DETAILS:

"Two Tornado fighters, part of the RAF’s Quick Reaction Alert, took off from RAF Leeming, in Yorkshire, to confront the Russian aircraft, after they were shadowed by two F16s from the Royal Norwegian Air Force, The Times has learnt.

“The Russians turned back before they reached British airspace,” an RAF spokesman said."

Answer 2

No. But the Russian bomber over the North Sea may be provocative. Apparently so. It provoked the RAF to action.

Answer 3

It's not provocative at all. The Russians are playing their old Cold War tricks again. It's international waters, so you can do whatever you want out there within the scope of international law. Of course, we in the West are not blameless at Cold War games.

The reason people fly these aircraft close to a potential adversary is the same as it always was: intelligence gathering. You place your best radio receivers on these planes and try to gather signals from radar installations, communications arrays, or whatever you think you can monitor, and you try to monitor them.

That's what the US was doing when the Chinese jets bumped one of our planes and forced that plane to make an emergency landing on a Chinese military base. We were gathering intel, no doubt. Everyone knows that everyone that can do it has done it, is doing it now and will do it in the future.

Answer 4

The reason i'm responding to this question is really to give you all a little lesson in reality. Yes the move is a provocation.

Russia, China and many middle eastern and asian countries are rallying together to form a clear rival military union against american led nato.

However, in response to the poor fools who say russia is dangerous, and so on, fail to ask who is and has been most dangerous to world security over recent years.

You've heard what uncle sam's been doing for the last 50 years, haven't you?

He's been upsetting all kind of folk. And, do you know who was doing the nasty work b4 that?

Yea, that's right, the good old British Empire.

And, don't come that, "if it wasn't for the US" line. We, the US and the UK are the greatest of all aggressors with the exception of the nazis.

We are the ones who are allowing our governments to drop cluster bombs and worse onto the laps of children in iraq.

Have you been on Youtube and witnessed the clear cut bloody murder.

Feel threatened? You should do.

A bit like that line from 'platoon', when Sgt. Elias says to Charlie that 'we [the US] have kicking **** for so long its about time somone kicked ours!

Sooner or later someone may drop a bomb on us.

And, why? Becos we fail to communicate and negotiate in our selfish economically led quests.

We are losing it people becos we are allowing our governments to behave like criminals.

We are responsible.

Look how big these countries, who are beginning to challenge our miltary and economic supremacy, really are.

Many of them can, to a greater extent than the uk, absorb nuclear strikes against their infrastructure and people.

The uk is tiny. We will be wiped out. Think of that. It could really happen.

What is the solution?

Withdrawing back to reality and beginning the diologue of peace and not war is a start.

Mutually assured destruction is still the logical conclusion in an unlimited war.

We are losing it thinking we are dominant (US led).

Times are changing and our governments need to behave more pragmatically and in a way that develops peaceful relationships as opposed to the way we are heading.

We need a good lesson in integrity. Don't let that lesson come too late. Wake up you dumb fools! This isn't the playground.

Russia dropped a bomb called the tzar over 30 years ago.

Look it up on Youtube, and wake up to the destructiveness that we have created together.

Wake up! Before it is too late?

Answer 5

The question should be, why SHOULDN'T they intercept bombers approaching their country? A country would be foolish to not stand up to probing and bullying from an aggressor. Britain has learned this lesson the hard way by a certain prime minister named Chamberlain who tried to appease an aggressor named Hitler during the lead up to WWII. A great man once said: "Let there be sunshine on both sides of the iron curtain; and if ever the sunshine should be equal on both sides, the curtain will be no more" - Winston Churchill., Blenheim, August 4, 1947. Oh sorry, am I implying that history has lessons which we can learn from?

Answer 6

It is a provocative action and the Russian Air Force has been testing RAF and regional defenses in multiple incidents over the last six months. However, there is no corresponding crisis that would indicate that these intrusions are anything beyond a probe. Still makes you think, what happened to our "friendship" Russia. Did GW see this when he looked into Putin's soul?

Answer 7

Flying a bomber over the North Sea? I suppose it could be viewed that way, thus the friendly 'escort.' Certainly that sort of incident would have been cause for mild alarm durring the Cold War. Such things are not really that unusual, though. Both nations have a right to fly thier aircraft in international airspace, afterall.

Answer 8

NO...the bomber came into UK air space so they have a right to scramble. The Russian bomber was in the wrong without Air Traffic Control permission

Answer 9

I thought provocative before i scrolled down and saw you had written that. Who`s airspace are they in? I havn`t seen this.
If you think back a couple of years, as the above poster says, thing seemed quite rosy in the Russian/British relationship, has this gone sour since the poisoning of Litvinenko?( can`t spell that)

Answer 10

On whose part? The Russians or the British?

Really, in either case, no, not in the current environment. Nations often take advantage of such situations to test their own capability and give their pilots, in this case, experience in such exercises. Now, if we were still in the cold war, yeah. But there is no current animosity between the nations. In fact, both the U.S. and British have had both join and cooperative exercises with the Russians for years.