Denis Tyrin/TASS
The Russian military has adviced the US to supply “all crews with updated maps showing the correct borders of Russia’s airspace” in order to avoid encounters over the Black Sea and the Russian borders in general.
The comment followed the recent reports about an interception of the US EP-3 radio-electronic surveillance plane by a Sukhoi Su-27 jet over the international waters of the Black Sea near Crimea on January 29.
“The Aerospace Force will continue to maintain the reliable protection of Russian airspace. Should American pilots, knowing this fact, fall into depression or succumb to any phobias, we advise the US side to exclude these flight routes near Russia’s borders in the future, or return to the negotiating table and agree on their rules,” the ministry said. “We would like to address the commander of the 67th Task Force of the 6th Fleet Bill Ellis with a reminder Crimea is an integral part of Russia.”
“Also, we would like to draw attention to the fact that it takes Russia’s fighter planes just minutes to ‘intercept’ air targets approaching the state border with their transponders turned off. For this reason all actions by Russia’s Sukhoi-27 plane, which for more than two hours and twenty minutes prevented the US radio-electronic surveillance plane EP-3E from approaching Russia’s air space near Crimea should be correctly called ‘escort’,” the ministry added.
