NORAD intercepts Russian, Chinese bombers off Alaskan coast

U.S. and Canadian fighter jets intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying in international airspace near Alaska on Wednesday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said, days after U.S. Defense Department officials said that increased Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic region was “very noticeable and concerning.”

NORAD “detected, tracked, and intercepted” the foreign military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, a zone that begins where sovereign airspace ends and which requires the “ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security,” NORAD said in a news release Wednesday.

The planes - two Russian TU-95 and two Chinese H-6 aircraft - remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace, it added.

The activity was “not seen as a threat,” NORAD said, adding that it “will continue to monitor competitor activity near North America and meet presence with presence.”

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said in a press briefing Thursday that the flight was the eighth “joint air strategic patrol” carried out by the Chinese and Russian militaries since 2019. He added that the operation “is not directed at any third party, complies with international law and practices, and is unrelated to the current international and regional situation.”

Joint China-Russia military exercises are nothing new. However, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks on Monday said China was seeking “greater influence” in the Arctic region, and that there was “growing cooperation between the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and Russia in the Arctic,” something she described as “troubling.”

Hicks, who was unveiling a new Arctic strategy, described this as “a critical time in the region,” particularly as “climate change and the resulting shifts in the operating environment” had implications for U.S. defense missions.

The strategy noted that China’s presence in the Arctic, “while limited, is increasing,” and said “while significant areas of disagreement between the PRC and Russia remain, their growing alignment in the region is of concern.” It added that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “has made it increasingly reliant on the PRC for financing energy export infrastructure in the Arctic,” where more than 80 percent of its natural gas production is located.

Defense officials have stressed that, even as Russia-China military cooperation has increased in recent years, the operations still remain limited.

“While we see this increasing collaboration, I think it’s also important to note that it’s somewhat superficial in nature still, especially from a military perspective,” Iris Ferguson, the Defense Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Arctic policy, said Monday.

“We know what it takes to operate with our Arctic allies and partners,” she continued. “And so, you know, flying in circles with one another briefly or deploying alongside one another is maybe good for optics, but we know that that’s not the same kind of level of in-depth cooperation that we have with our partners.”

Earlier this month, the U.S. Coast Guard said a patrol discovered several Chinese military ships in the Bering Sea, in international waters but within the U.S. exclusive economic zone. The Chinese vessels said they were conducting “freedom of navigation operations,” the coast guard statement added.