Putin revives long-range bomber patrols

Luke Harding in Moscow and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Saturday August 18, 2007
The Guardian

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, yesterday announced Russia had resumed long-range flights of strategic bombers capable of striking targets deep inside the United States with nuclear weapons.
Mr Putin said Russia had restarted the Soviet-era practice of sending bomber aircraft on regular patrols beyond its borders.

Speaking after Russian and Chinese forces completed a day of war games in Russia's Urals, Mr Putin said 14 Russian bombers had taken off simultaneously yesterday on long-range missions.

"We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic bombers on a permanent basis," he said.
He added: "Russia stopped this practice in 1992. Unfortunately not everybody followed suit. This creates a strategic risk for Russia ... we hope our partners show understanding towards the resumption of Russian air patrols."

Last night analysts described Russia's move as a "grave development". They said Mr Putin appeared to have unilaterally abrogated an agreement with the US and Britain signed in 1991 not to engage in long-range nuclear bomber flights.

Russia's then president, Boris Yeltsin, and the former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, signed the agreement with the then US president George Bush senior. Under it all sides agreed to reduce their strategic rocket forces and to stop long-range bomber flights.

"This is a very grave development that threatens the US with nuclear weapons. It means that Russian bombers will be ready to attack the US at a moment's notice just like in the cold war," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a leading Moscow-based defence analyst.

Mr Felgenhauer said the bombers would be deployed in positions north of Britain over the North Pole, from where they would be able to fly across the Pacific or Atlantic to attack US targets.

He also said there was a real risk that bombers equipped with nuclear warheads might crash. "These flights are very dangerous. The planes are old and the maintenance is patchy. Crews are not always as best prepared as in the cold war. A crash with nuclear weapons is very possible," he warned.

During the cold war Russian long-range bombers regularly played elaborate games of cat-and-mouse with western air forces.

Earlier this month Russian air force generals said bomber crews had flown near the Pacific Island of Guam, where the US military has a base, and "exchanged smiles" with US pilots scrambled to track them. The Pentagon said Russian aircraft had not come close enough to US ships for American planes to react.

Last month the Royal Air Force scrambled fighter jets to intercept two Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear" bombers spotted heading towards British airspace. Russia's air force said it was a routine flight.

Mr Putin has been incensed by the Bush administration's plans to site parts of its controversial missile defence system in central Europe, close to the Russian border.

As well as denouncing US unilateralism, he has recently announced that Russia is withdrawing from a series of key arms agreements struck in the aftermath of the cold war.

Last month Mr Putin said Moscow was suspending its obligations under the conventional arms forces in Europe treaty, which limits the deployment of Nato and Russian troops. He says the real target of the Pentagon's controversial missile shield is Russia.

Moscow has, meanwhile, claimed a large chunk of the Arctic, planting a Russian flag on a deep-sea shelf.

All this has taken place against a backdrop of rapidly worsening relations with the west - and with Britain in particular.

The White House yesterday downplayed concerns about the Russian move, saying it was a matter for Moscow what it did with its planes. The US has had a consistent policy over the last month or so of conciliatory responses in an attempt to reduce tensions over European missile defence.

One of the US's concerns is that the resumption of the bomber flights will mean them flying along the US east coast for the first time since the cold war.