Japan scrambled its fighter jets when two Russian military aircraft flew around the archipelago on September 12, 2024.
According to Japan’s Ministry of Defense, a pair of Tu-142 Russian maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft performed an encirclement flight around Japan from morning until afternoon.
The planes, also known as ‘Bear F’ under NATO reporting names for Russian aircraft, flew northward over the Pacific Ocean towards northern Hokkaido island.
Although the two Russian planes did not enter Japanese airspace, they flew over an area that is subject to a territorial dispute between the two countries.
“In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defence Force fighter jets on an emergency basis,” the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
A few days prior to the incident, Russia launched Ocean-24, a massive naval and air exercise that spans the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, the Mediterranean, Caspian and Baltic Seas.
These drills will continue through September 16, 2024 and involve 400+ warships, submarines and support vessels, more than 120 planes and helicopters and over 90,000 troops. China is included in the joint maneuver of these exercises.
The last time Russian military aircraft flew along the coast of Japan was in June 2019, when two Russian bombers twice entered Japanese airspace.
