U.S. and Canadian fighter jets intercepted a joint Russian-Chinese bomber operation near Alaska this week, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).
NORAD, a binational command of the American and Canadian armed forces, said it “detected, tracked, and intercepted” two Russian Tu-95s and two Chinese H-6s operating in the Alaska air defense identification zone on Wednesday.
The aircraft “remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace,” NORAD said in a news release. It explained that an ADIZ begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace requiring the ready identification of all aircraft for national security reasons.
The intercept was conducted by two U.S. F-35s, two U.S. F-16s and two Canadian CF-18s, a NORAD spokesperson told Nikkei Asia.
“It’s the first time that we’ve seen these two countries fly together like that,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Thursday. But he said it was “not a surprise”, noting the U.S. monitors the collaboration between China and Russia closely. It marks a new phase of joint activity by the Chinese and Russian militaries in the eastern Pacific after regularized joint drills in the western Pacific, a Japanese defense official told Nikkei Asia.
“Joint flights of strategic bombers require close communication between the aircraft or a predetermined set of rules on how to fly,” said the official, who noted: “The longer the flight, the more difficult it is to fly safely side by side.”
China and Russia have in the past jointly flown bombers around Japan, starting in 2019. The same set of aircraft — Tu-95s and H-6s — flew once a year for four years before doubling in 2023, according to the Japanese Ministry of Defense.
The two countries have held more frequent exercises in the maritime domain. In 2021 and 2022, warships from the two countries sailed around the Japanese archipelago as if to encircle it.
In mid-July, Chinese and Russian warships patrolled the South China Sea, with a joint fleet that included the Chinese destroyer Yinchuan and a Russian frigate, along with shipboard helicopters and special operations personnel.
This was seen as a westward expansion of the drills, since previous military Sino-Russian cooperation had been concentrated in the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea.
The increased cooperation comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing this May and again in Kazakhstan less than two months later.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Defense released an updated Arctic strategy that noted the growing cooperation between Russia and China in the High North. The Pentagon said it will strengthen its engagement with like-minded allies and partners to form a new strategic approach to the Arctic, including through establishing an Arctic Security Policy Roundtable to provide timely and relevant policy guidance on defense.
