Japanese fighter jets fire flares at Russian aircraft for first time in airspace violation

Japan said its fighter jets used flares for the first time to warn a Russian reconnaissance aircraft to leave Japanese airspace.

An undisclosed number of F-15 and F-35 warplanes were scrambled and fired flares on Monday after the Russian aircraft apparently ignored their radio warnings, Japanese defence minister Minoru Kihara said.

Kihara said the Russian Il-38 plane breached Japan’s airspace above Rebun Island, just off the coast of the country’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido,three times during its five-hour flight in the area.

Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida told government officials to respond “firmly and calmly” to the incident and closely work with the United States and other nations, chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said.

“We will refrain from giving any definitive information on the intent and purpose of this action, but the Russian military has been active in the vicinity of our country since the invasion of Ukraine,” Hayashi added.

“The airspace violation was extremely regrettable,” Kihara said. Japan “strongly protested” to Russia through diplomatic channels and demanded preventive measures, he said, adding: “We will carry out our warning and surveillance operations as we pay close attention to their military activities.”

Kihara said the use of flares was a legitimate response to airspace violation and “we plan to use it without hesitation.”

View image in fullscreen

It came a day after a joint fleet of Chinese and Russian warships sailed around Japanese northern coasts. Kihara said the airspace violation could be related to a joint military exercise that Russia and China announced earlier this month.

Japanese defence officials are highly concerned about growing military cooperation between the China and Russia, and China’s increasingly assertive activity around Japanese waters and airspace. It led Tokyo to significantly reinforce defences of south-western Japan, including remote islands that are considered key to Japan’s defence strategy in the region.

Earlier in September, Russian military aircraft flew around southern Japanese airspace. A Chinese Y-9 reconnaissance aircraft briefly violated Japan’s southern airspace in late August.

The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, accompanied by two destroyers, sailed between Japan’s westernmost island of Yonaguni and nearby Iriomote, entering close to Japan’s waters.

According to Japan’s military, it scrambled jets nearly 669 times between April 2023 and March 2024, about 70% of the time against Chinese military aircraft, though that did not include airspace violations.

Japan and Russia are in a territorial dispute over a group of Russian-held islands, which the former Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of the second world war. The feud has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending their war hostilities.

With Associated Press

This post was originally published on this site