| | От | skipper |  |
| К | All | |
| Дата | 15.02.2001 01:14:46 |  |
| Рубрики | Прочее; |  |
Активничают чтой-то летуны на ТОФе (+)
Вот, на облет о. Хоккайдо покусились. С чего бы это?
+++
TOKYO (AP)-
Russian military planes illegally entered Japan's airspace twice on Wednesday in the first such violations in six years, the defense agency said. However, Russian officials denied the claim.
Japanese fighters scrambled toward the Russian warplanes after they were spotted on radar screens, but no encounter occurred, said Koichiro Oshima, a defense agency official.
He said four Russian planes, including Tu-22 bombers, were spotted at 11:59 a.m. (0259 GMT) in Japanese airspace off Rebunto Island at the tip of Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido. He said two Tu-22 bombers were then spotted at 2:36 p.m. (0536 GMT) in the same area.
Each time, the planes flew over Japanese airspace for about three minutes, Oshima said.
Japanese F-15 and F-1 fighters took off from bases in Misawa, northern Japan, and Chitose on Hokkaido, and they issued radio warnings to the Russian warplanes, he said.
It was the first Russian violation of Japanese airspace since 1995, Oshima said.
In Tokyo, Jiro Kodera, the director of the Foreign Ministry's Russian division, summoned Russian Embassy official Leonid Shevchuk to the ministry and issued a strong protest against the violation of Japan's air space, officials said in a statement.
"After the Japanese side's statement about this, we again analyzed all the actions of our pilots, and there were no violations of Japan's airspace," Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said in Moscow.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, on condition of anonymity, said that flights were part of Feb. 13-16 exercises.
The Interfax news agency reported that the training required four planes - two Tu-22 long-range bombers escorting two Sukhoi-27 fighter-interceptors - to fly over the Kunashir and La Perouse Straits, between Hokkaido and Russia.
+++