Britain's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond addresses the media after a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in Vienna October 29, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Leonhard Foeger
Philip Hammond: Russian Planes 'Probing UK' -- BBC
Britain is concerned about the "extremely aggressive probing" of its airspace by Russian aircraft, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said.
He made the remark while being questioned by a Commons committee about arms export licences to Russia.
He told MPs the UK was responding to Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis via EU-wide sanctions.
But the committee chairman said the government's arms policy towards Russia had been "extraordinarily lenient".
Conservative MP Sir John Stanley, who chairs the Committee on Arms Export Controls, said he had previously written to Prime Minister David Cameron to raise concerns about 285 existing licences to Russia.
Read more ....
More News on Russia Testing U.K. Air Defenses
UK concerned by Russian testing of its air space -- Reuters
Concern over Russian aircraft 'probing UK air space' -- ITV
UK troubled by increase in Russia military aircraft near borders -- BDLive
My Comment: My advice to the U.K. is to "probe back" .... if they can.
6 comments:
I don't think they can nor want to. I think doing so, would raise the stakes pretty high and considering how close Russian jets are flying to opposing jets, the risk of collision becomes dangerously high. Or the unthinkable might happen and the Russians might fire off an S-400 missile right at the British Jet if it strayed too far into Russian airspace.
How times have changed Jason. During the height of the Cold War both sides had no problems in probing the other side's defense .... today .... one side appears to have developed the case of the jitters .... a definite wrong perception to give to Moscow.
The West probes Russian and Chinese defences regularly,
Remember the US Joint Rivet that fled into Swedish Airspace in August?
http://theaviationist.com/2014/08/01/rc-135-violated-swedish-airspace/
I agree Jay. The West has a long history of probing Russian and Chinese defenses .... so expect some probing in return.
It's worse than that. There is an ongoing and steady drumbeat of propaganda, to demonize Russia, to the point that a lawful transit of the English Channel is hyped as a dangerous threat and provocation, or as earlier, a Viper jockey's HUD is edited to omit the doofus's mismanagement of closure rates and is sold as "dangerous maneuvers", by a MIG that's not maneuvering.
Being the neighbor to the UK, I do wish they'd grow a pair already and show some backbone... (Can't believe I just said that!)
Also, I don't think Putin is in any way directing for a more aggressive stance towards NATO/EU allies.
I'd imagine the chain of command is quite 'loose' within the Russian forces and that the old saying, "Boys will be boys" is very much the truth. I reckon there's some military brass who have an old cold war mentality towards the West and NATO in general, and go about their business partaking in these sort of activities without any hindrance or shackles from Moscow.
It's only when they fuck up, big time that Moscow will ever get involved, but until then, Putin lets the dogs play about without muzzling them and leashing them up...
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