Russia's strategic bombers have resumed their Cold War practice
of flying long-haul missions to areas patrolled by NATO and the
United States, top generals said yesterday.
A Russian bomber flew over a US military base on the Pacific
island of Guam on Wednesday and "exchanged smiles" with US pilots
who had scrambled to track it, said Major-General Pavel Androsov,
head of long-range aviation in the Russian air force.
"It has always been the tradition of our long-range aviation to
fly far into the ocean, to meet (US) aircraft carriers and greet
(US pilots) visually," Androsov told a news conference.
"Yesterday we revived this tradition, and two of our young crews
paid a visit to the area of the (US Pacific Naval Activities) base
of Guam," he said.
President Vladimir Putin has sought to make Russia more
assertive in the world.
Putin has boosted defense spending and sought to raise morale in
the armed forces, which were starved of funding in the chaos that
followed the fall of the Soviet Union.
Androsov said the sortie by the two turboprop Tu-95MS bombers,
from a base near Blagoveshchensk in the Far East, had lasted for 13
hours. The Tu-95, codenamed "Bear" by NATO, is Russia's Cold War
icon and may stay in service until 2040.
The bombers give Russia the capability of launching a
devastating nuclear strike even if the nuclear arsenals on its own
territory are wiped out.
During the Cold War, they played elaborate airborne games of
cat-and-mouse with Western air forces.
Lieutenant-General Igor Khvorov, air forces chief of staff, said
the West would have to come to terms with Russia asserting its
geopolitical presence around the globe.
"But I don't see anything unusual, this is business as usual ...
like it is normal for the US to fly from its continent to Guam or,
say, the island of Garcia," Khvorov said, referring to a remote
Indian Ocean atoll used as a military base by the US.
On Wednesday, young pilots of strategic bombers passed a series
of tests, including missile launches. "We fired eight cruise
missiles, and all hit bull's eye," Khvorov said.
He said one crew had taken off from Engels in southwestern
Russia, hit a target in the north and then flown thousands of
kilometers before finally landing in the Far East.
Engels is home to Russia's supersonic Tupolev Tu-160 strategic
bombers, in service since 1987 and codenamed "Blackjack" by NATO
while called "White Swan" by Russian pilots.
(China Daily via agencies August 10, 2007)
