Russia Sends Warships Near Australia and Troops to Ukraine, Reports Say

   (Epoch News) --- Russia is sending warships toward Australia ahead of the G20 meeting, according to Australian media reports on Wednesday. At the same time, NATO has made claims that Russia is deploying troops into eastern Ukraine.

Russian Pacific Navy ships sail near the Sakhalin
Island during military exercises on Tuesday, July 16, 2013.
The maneuvers in Siberia and the far eastern region
involved 160,000 troops and about 5,000 tanks - a massive
show of force unprecedented since the Soviet times.
(AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Presidential Press
Service, Pool)

   Australian officials have confirmed that the warships are being monitored, and added that the “movement of these vessels is entirely consistent with provisions under international law for military vessels to exercise freedom of navigation in international waters,” reported SMH.com.au. They are presently “transiting through international waters to the north of Australia,” the Australian defense agency stated

   Defense Force chief Mark Binskin noted its unusual for Russian warships to travel this, suggesting that the Kremlin is attempting to display its power.

   “Their confidence? One of them is an ocean-going tug,” he told the website. “It’s just part of their operation. They are in international waters. They are allowed to do that. They are in our approaches and we will continue to surveil them with air and maritime assets.”

   Australian officials noted that Russia sent naval warships ahead of international meetings in the past.

   “Russian naval vessels have previously been deployed in conjunction with major international summits, such as the APEC meeting in Singapore in 2009. A warship from Russia’s Pacific Fleet also accompanied former Russian President Medvedev’s visit to San Francisco in 2010,” the Defense Force said.

   Meanwhile, NATO said that Russian troops have crossed the border into Ukraine.

   “Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defence systems and Russian combat troops” were sighted, US Gen Philip Breedlove stated Wednesday, according to the BBC.

   In response, Russia’s defense ministry denied that its troops were there to help pro-Russian militants. The rebels, however, said they were being helped by Russian “volunteers” but didn’t specifically say the Russian army was helping them.

Russian bomber patrols to reach Gulf of Mexico

   MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's long-range bombers will conduct regular patrol missions from the Arctic Ocean to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, the military said Wednesday, a show of muscle reflecting tensions with the West over Ukraine.  

   A statement from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu came as NATO's chief commander accused Moscow of sending new troops and tanks into Ukraine — a claim quickly rejected by Russia.

   Shoigu said the tensions with the West over Ukraine would require Russia to also beef up its forces in the Crimea, the Black Sea Peninsula that Russia annexed in March.

   He said Russian long-range bombers will conduct flights along Russian borders and over the Arctic Ocean. He added that "in the current situation we have to maintain military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico."

   He said that the increasing pace and duration of flights would require stronger maintenance efforts and relevant directives have been issued to industries.

   Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers were making regular patrols across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans during Cold War times, but the post-Soviet money crunch forced the military to cut back. The bomber patrol flights have resumed under President Vladimir Putin's tenure.

   The patrols have become even more frequent in recent weeks with NATO reporting a spike in Russian military flights over the Black, Baltic and North seas as well as the Atlantic Ocean.

   Earlier this year, Shoigu said that Russia plans to expand its worldwide military presence by seeking permission for navy ships to use ports in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for replenishing supplies and doing maintenance. He said the military was conducting talks with Algeria, Cyprus, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Seychelles, Vietnam and Singapore.

   Shoigu said Russia was also talking to some of those countries about allowing long-range bombers to use their air bases for refueling.

Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, said the bomber patrols were part of Kremlin's efforts to make the Russian military "more visible and more assertive in its actions."

   The new bomber flights "aren't necessarily presaging a threat," Kearns said. "They are just part of a general ramping-up of activities."

   But he said "the more instances you have of NATO and Russian forces coming close together, the more chance there is of having something bad happening, even if it's not intentional."

   On Monday, the European Leadership Network issued a report that found a sharp rise in Russian-NATO military encounters since the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea, including violations of national airspace, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea, harassment of reconnaissance planes, close overflights over warships and Russian mock bombing raid missions.

   Three of the nearly 40 incidents, the think tank said, carried a "high probability" of causing casualties or triggering a direct military confrontation: a narrowly avoided collision between a civilian airliner and a Russian surveillance plane, the abduction of an Estonian intelligence officer and a large-scale Swedish hunt for a suspected Russian submarine that yielded no result.

   In September, the report said, Russian strategic bombers in the Labrador Sea off Canada practiced cruise missile strikes on the U.S. Earlier this year, in May, the report said, Russian military aircraft approached within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the California coast, the closest such Russian military flight reported since the end of the Cold War.

   Russia-West ties have dipped to their lowest point since Cold War times over the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russia insurgents in Ukraine. The West and Ukraine have continuously accused Moscow of fueling the rebellion in eastern Ukraine with troops and weapons — claims Russia has rejected.

   Fighting has continued in the east despite a cease-fire agreement between Ukraine and the rebels signed in September, and Ukraine and the West accused Russia recently of sending in new troops and weapons.

   U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove said Wednesday that in the last two days "we have seen columns of Russian equipment, primarily Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems and Russian combat troops entering into Ukraine."

   Breedlove, who spoke in Sofia, Bulgaria, wouldn't say how many new troops and weapons have moved into Ukraine and wouldn't specify how the alliance obtained the information. The Russian Defense Ministry quickly rejected Breedlove's statement as groundless.

   Breedlove said that the Russia-Ukraine border is "completely wide open," and "forces, money, support, supplies, weapons are flowing back and forth across this border completely at will."

   "We need to get back to a situation where this international border is respected," he said.

Armenia vows 'grave consequences' after helicopter downed

   Baku (AFP) --- Yerevan vowed 'grave consequences' Wednesday after Azerbaijani forces shot down an Armenian military helicopter, sparking fears of a major escalation of the longstanding conflict over Nagorny Karabakh. 

MI-24 Hind - Stock Photo

   The downing is the most serious military incident along the Karabakh frontier since the 1994 ceasefire that ended a bloody war that cost 30,000 lives over the disputed region.

   Armenian media reported that the helicopter's three crew members were all killed.

   "A MI-24 combat helicopter attempted to attack positions of the Azerbaijani army near (Karabakh's) Agdam district," Azerbaijan's defence ministry said in a statement.

   "The helicopter has been shot down by the Azerbaijani army," it said, adding that the wreckage fell on territory held by ethnic Armenians.

Yerevan vowed that Baku will face "grave consequences", fuelling fears that the incident might seriously undermine a shaky peace.

   "This is an unprecedented escalation and the consequences for Azerbaijan will be grave,” Armenia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Artsrun Hovannisyan, told AFP.

   “Azerbaijan's claim that the Armenian helicopter attacked its positions is not true. Examination of the wreckage will prove that the helicopter carried no weapons,” he added.

   The separatist defence ministry in Karabakh confirmed that its helicopter was downed by Azerbaijani forces "while conducting a training flight as part of military drills", adding that a firefight began after the incident and was continuing.

   "The enemy is continuing to fire intensively in the direction of the site of the incident with small arms of various calibre," it said.

   Since Thursday, Karabakh forces have been conducting joint drills with Armenia coordinated by the Armenian army chief-of-staff.

- Worse since Ukraine crisis -

   Two decades after a ceasefire agreement ended their bitter war over Karabakh, Azerbaijani and Armenian forces regularly exchange fire across their frontier and along the Karabakh frontline.

   Last August saw an unprecedented spiral of violence with more than 20 troops killed from both sides in the deadliest clashes since an overall ceasefire was agreed.

   Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized the mountainous region, which is mainly inhabited by ethnic Armenians, from Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s.

   Despite years of internationally mediated negotiations, the two sides have not yet signed a final peace deal, with Karabakh still internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.

   The peace talks are being brokered by the so-called Minsk group of mediators appointed by the OSCE in 1992 and co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States.

   Oil-rich Baku, whose military spending exceeds Armenia's entire state budget, has threatened to take back the region by force if negotiations do not yield results.

   Armenia, which is heavily armed by Russia, says it could crush any offensive.

   Last month Europe made a fresh push to end the festering conflict.

   Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited both countries in October to facilitate a negotiated solution to the conflict.

   French President Francois Hollande also hosted leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan for Karabakh talks but the meeting ended without any breakthrough.

   Tensions between Baku and Moscow-allied Yerevan are escalating as Russia confronts the West over Ukraine, where government forces are battling pro-Russian separatists.

   "What happened in Ukraine has had a direct impact" on the Karabakh conflict, a source in Hollande's entourage said in October, adding that Russia's annexation of Crimea "exacerbated the climate".

Here's Why Russia Just Escalated Its Military Action In Ukraine

   (RFE/RL) --- Fighting in eastern Ukraine — and particularly around the city of Donetsk — has flared up again, more intensely than anything since a shaky ceasefire was agreed to in Minsk on September 5.   

   Journalists and other observers on November 7 reported seeing dozens of military vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, entering separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine from Russia. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) confirmed the sightings the following day.

   Numerous videos of the convoy have appeared online.

   Moscow has denied Russia is involved in the fighting and has called for all parties to observe the Minsk agreement. The separatists claim that the convoys are merely reinforcements being moved toward Donetsk from other parts of the breakaway region.

   Pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov, however, told the Daily Beast that Moscow is providing "multilayered support" to the separatist movement.

   What is the cause of the renewed military activity in eastern Ukraine?

   Here are a few possibilities: 

'Election' Reaction

   On November 2, the separatist authorities in eastern Ukraine held disputed elections that Kiev, the OSCE, the EU, and the United States said were illegitimate and a violation of the Minsk agreement. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the voting "torpedoed" the Minsk process.

   In response, Poroshenko sent additional troops to the region and asked parliament to repeal a law on autonomy for the breakaway regions that was passed as part of the Minsk process.

   "I think the recent transfer of equipment [from Russia to the separatists] is primarily defensive at this stage," said Tom Frear, a researcher at the European Leadership Network (ELN), in a written interview. "The rhetoric coming out of Kiev following the elections in the Donbass and the revocation of the autonomy agreement means that Russia and the Donbas leadership can't rule out a renewed Ukrainian offensive."

Tactical Considerations

   The influx of equipment to the separatists could also signal a desire to solidify their positions and make some small local gains that could make it easier to get through the winter.

   The separatists may be seeking control of specific objects, such as a power plant to the north of Luhansk and Donetsk airport, Frear says. Such moves, he says, are "aimed at securing economic assets that make the long-term survival of the Luhansk People's Republic [LNR] and the Donetsk People's Republic [DNR] more plausible."

   Russian analyst Markov also told the Daily Beast that the separatists are seeking to take control over "Piski, Avdiivka, and Schastye, a town with a central heating station." In addition, he speculated they might want to recapture Slovyansk and Kramotorsk, which are "symbolically and strategically important towns for them."

Building A Land Bridge

   More dramatically, Moscow may be intent on adding territory to the separatist region that would give Russia a land bridge across eastern Ukraine to the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in March.

   The region is currently accessible to Russia only by air and across the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Such a land bridge would make it much easier for Moscow to supply Crimea.

   Ivan Lozowy, an independent policy analyst based in Kiev, says establishing this land bridge is Putin's "unfinished business in eastern Ukraine" and "a priority" for him.

   It would, however, have to include the key city of Mariupol, which would be a difficult objective to capture.

   Mariupol "is pretty much dead set against letting the Russian troops through," Lozowy says. "The local residents have even been helping to build fortifications."

And What About Kharkiv?

   The so-called Novorossia project has foundered in recent months, and could be strengthened if the separatists were able to get control of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city.

   Lozowy notes that the city has "symbolic significance," as well as being a major industrial center.

   In December 1917, Kharkiv was the first Ukrainian city to recognize the Bolshevik coup in Russia, and the city served as Ukraine's capital until 1935. Ukraine's largest tank producer is located in the region, among many other military-industrial enterprises.

   "Undoubtedly, Kharkiv, which has remained on the whole indifferent to calls to join 'Novorossia,' really upsets certain circles both in Moscow and in the LNR and DNR," Russian military analyst Aleksandr Golts told openrussia.org on November 10.

   Lozowy says achieving the two goals of establishing a land bridge to Crimea and incorporating Kharkiv into the separatist territory would "bring Putin and the Kremlin very close to their original goal of building — or carving out, rather — a 'Novorossia' from Ukrainian territory."

NATO, Russia Already At Brink Of War – Report

   (REUTERS) ---  Global nations have been urged to prepare or at least try to put some sense into both NATO and Russia as a report published on Monday suggest it will just be a matter of time before continued provocations escalate into a potential war.

   A report by the London-based thinktank titled 'Dangerous Brinkmanship by the European Leadership Network' revealed there have been at least 40 dangerous or sensitive incidents that occurred in just the past eight months alone between Russia and  NATO countries, as well as their partners in Sweden and Finland, that almost triggered military hostilities between both.

   The 40 incidents were described as "unusual" because the incidents showed violations of national airspace, emergency air-defense scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea, simulated attack runs and other dangerous actions on a regular basis over a wide area. It's a "highly disturbing picture," the report said.

   The report described 11 serious incidents of a more aggressive or unusually provocative nature, "bringing a higher level risk of escalation." Such incidents reportedly involved a harassment of reconnaissance planes, close over-flights over warships and Russian "mock bombing raid" missions. There were also dangerous incidents where Russian planes did not turn on its transponders. Transponders emit signals to other aircraft telling them of the other's presence. It wasn't stated if the Russians purposely turned off their transponders or not.

   Thomas Frear, Lukasz Kulesa and Ian Kearns, the report's authors, said they believed the 40 incidents occurred because Russia is playing a "dangerous game of brinkmanship." However, such display of flare has the strong "potential for unintended escalation in what is now the most serious security crisis in Europe since the cold war." In October alone, NATO disclosed it had intercepted over 100 Russian aircraft, which it said had been three times over compared in 2013.

   "The increased number and gravity of incidents described points to a disturbing dynamic," the report said. "The mix of beefed-up military postures along the NATO-Russia border, more aggressive Russian activities and the readiness of western forces to show resolve in the face of the challenge is ripe with potential for escalation."

   Des Browne, former UK Defence Secretary, had earlier told Sky News he believed Russia is doing his arsenal display to test the cooperation and readiness of the NATO-member nations. He said Russia should be reminded that the costs and risks associated with war will be incurred by all parties involved.

   "History has shown that, quite often, serious conflicts escalating into wars start off with relatively small incidents which grow very quickly," he said.

As U.S. nuclear arsenal ages, other nations have modernized

   As Russian forces were drawing back from a swift and violent incursion into Ukraine this fall, Moscow was delivering another powerful military statement many miles to the north.

   A new 40-foot Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of delivering an unparalleled 10 nuclear warheads, was launched by a Russian navy submarine on a test run over the icy White Sea. The weapon was a clear signal to the world that as Russia battles tightening economic sanctions intended to block Moscow's aggressive posturing on NATO's frontiers, President Vladimir Putin has another card to play.

   "I want to remind you that Russia is one of the most powerful nuclear nations," Putin declared earlier this year at a state-sponsored youth camp. He reinforced the message last month, inviting the world to "remember what consequences discord between major nuclear powers could bring for strategic stability." 

   The debate over how to modernize America's aging nuclear forces has taken on increasing urgency with the emergence of a newly assertive Russia and a new generation of nuclear powers with increasing technological sophistication.

   North Korea, Pakistan and India all are working quickly to improve their nuclear arsenals and delivery systems. By next year, China is expected to be capable of delivering a nuclear strike anywhere in the continental U.S. for the first time in its history — a threat that Russia has posed for decades.

   While the nuclear confrontation between the United States and Russia cooled off after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, it has never ended. Indeed, the long-held hope for continual reductions in nuclear forces now seems unattainable, nuclear arms analysts say. For the first time in years, the U.S. and Russia each have increased the number of nuclear warheads deployed over the latest six-month monitoring period — the U.S. by 57 additional weapons and Russia by 131.

   Russia is spending $560 billion on military modernization over the next six years with 25% allocated to aging nuclear forces, part of a program to replace all of its Soviet Union-era launchers. U.S. officials say it will take at least $355 billion over the coming decade to upgrade America's nuclear arsenal and keep up with the rearmament spree underway in the rest of the world.

   "Our rival powers are investing billions of dollars to modernize and improve their nuclear systems," said Maj. Gen. Sandra Finan, Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center commander, warning that if the U.S. is "to remain credible," it must maintain nuclear preparedness as a priority.

   Our rival powers are investing billions of dollars to modernize and improve their nuclear systems. - Maj. Gen. Sandra Finan, Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center commander

   But veterans of the Cold War also say tit-for-tat responses in nuclear confrontation carry grave risks, anchored to erroneous assumptions that a nuclear exchange would leave one side in better condition than the other.

   "God help us if we ever need them," said Philip Coyle, a former nuclear weapons scientist, director of nuclear testing, senior Pentagon official and national security advisor.

   The U.S. and Russia both continue to field land-based missiles that could be launched in a few minutes, submarine-based missiles able to deliver a devastating counterpunch to any surprise attack, and bombers that could loiter in threatening holding patterns above the Arctic.

   A new strategic arms reduction treaty signed in 2010 limits deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 on each side, with a cap of 700 missiles and bombers by 2018. And over the last two decades, nuclear capabilities have been far from the U.S. military's top priority. Most of the attention has gone to high-tech conventional weapons that evolved after the first Gulf War. Two decades have gone by without developing a nuclear strategic weapon.

   All the while, U.S. nuclear-capable bombers, submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles and their launch-control bunkers have been allowed to become virtual Cold War museums.

-----

   In rural Great Falls, Mont., a small ranch house stands on the prairie with a sign at the gated entrance that reads "Ace in the Hole." The house, tucked amid the rolling hills just off Highway 200, is a facade for what lies beneath it.

   In a cramped capsule 70 feet below the house, Air Force Lt. Katie Grimley, 26, and Lt. Wesley Griffith, 28, command a fleet of 10 towering missiles capable of obliterating any spot on Earth in 30 minutes or less.

   The underground capsule is one of many launch-control centers spread across 28,852 acres at Malmstrom Air Force Base. When it was first built, it was equipped with the latest gadgetry that 1962 had to offer. 

A detail of the numerous control panels inside a missile launch control facility at Malmstrom Air Force Base. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

   Now, a 6-foot-high digital translator must be used to convert tones and whistles into signals a computer can read. The computers use 8-inch floppy disks that became obsolete even before the era of personal computers. Spare parts are so hard to find that on occasion they've had to be pulled from military museums.

   "It's a little like going back in time," Griffith says.

   It's not just the missile launch centers: Each of the U.S. nuclear delivery systems is approaching obsolescence. The Air Force's largest fleet of bombers dates back to the Kennedy administration. The Navy's armada of missile-carrying submarines is nearing the end of its designed life, and the warheads they carry are nearly three decades old, on average.

   Though the launch silo is a relic of the Cold War, it is routinely maintained and updated, and still provides the U.S. with a more lethal nuclear strike capability than that of any other nation. The debate over spending billions for modernization hinges in large part on how essential these Cold War systems remain when the most common security threats are low-tech insurgencies and domestic terrorist strikes.

-----

   The argument for upgrading got a boost this year in Ukraine, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and supported separatists fighting to wrest control of the nation's eastern provinces. In the midst of the crisis, Putin reminded the world that his nation remained "one of the leading nuclear powers" and that "it's best not to mess with us."

   Russia's newest missile, the RSM-56 Bulava, is submarine-based with a range of about 5,000 miles. After a series of failed test launches, the missile successfully conducted its first operational test last month from the new class of submarine, the Boreis.

   In 2010, Russia deployed the land-based RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile on mobile launchers and in silos. It is designed to outsmart the U.S. missile defense system, according to a recent report by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center. Russia retains 1,200 warheads on its fleet of ICBMs.

   The country has also been projecting power beyond its borders. Two months ago, in an exhibition that resembled a Cold War-era nuclear attack exercise, two Russian fighter jets, two long-range bombers and two aerial refueling tankers flew in international airspace near the coast of Alaska. They were intercepted by U.S. fighter planes and escorted out of the area.

   NATO has conducted more than 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft this year, about three times more than in 2013. 

   China also is developing more potent missiles that will enable it to target any area of the U.S. for the first time.

Just last month, state-run media carried front-page stories on the launch of China's first nuclear-powered submarine. The new fleet of subs, known as the Jin-class, will carry a dozen nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the continental U.S. from the mid-Pacific, according to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence.

   Until now, China's missiles could reach only the West Coast. The CSS-10 Mod 2, a solid rocket that can be launched from a mobile platform, is now being deployed with a nearly 7,000-mile range. And it is developing a variant with an 8,700-mile range. The intelligence center estimates that China will have about 100 ICBMs that could threaten the U.S. within a decade.

   New threats are also looming from North Korea. The commander of U.S. forces in South Korea said he believed Pyongyang now had the ability to produce a miniaturized nuclear warhead and mount it on a missile. North Korea has had a string of failures in developing an ICBM, but continues its development of a missile with enough range to hit the U.S. It has shown at least one road-mobile ICBM in a military parade, though it has never tested it.

   Iran, meanwhile, has a family of launch vehicles and is believed to be working on a missile with intercontinental range that could be deployed within years.

   The $355-billion price tag for modernizing the aging U.S. "nuclear triad" of bombers, submarines and land-based missiles over the next decade may not even be realistic, according to Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey. He said the actual expense, taking into account the tremendous spike in costs for new submarines, bombers and ballistic missiles, is likely to approach $1 trillion over the next 30 years.

   The Air Force is able to maintain about 98% of its existing ICBMs on alert, despite their age, but even that comes at a high price. Upkeep expenses over the last three years have increased 36% to about $1.3 billion when compared to the same time frame a decade ago.

   But can the U.S. afford to back away? Failure to maintain at least parity for U.S. nuclear forces could open the door to a fundamental recalculation in the balance of global power, analysts say.

   Lewis notes that arms control treaties have been based on U.S. strength, not weakness. He worries that a failure to project a powerful level of nuclear readiness will leave the country vulnerable as foreign threats intensify — and actually undermine efforts to work eventually toward worldwide disarmament.

   "I am an arms control guy," he said, "who fears the budget problems are so deep that it will kill arms control."

Russian Spy Plane Violates NATO Air Space, Run Off By Canadian Fighter Pilots In Lithuania

    (Inquisitr) --- A Russian spy plane was intercepted Saturday by NATO fighter jets over the Baltic sea Saturday — the second time this week that NATO fighters scrambled to drive away a Soviet-era Russian Ilyushin IL-20, a turbo-prop powered surveillance aircraft. But this time, the Russian plane was caught inside NATO air space over Lithuania — a possible sign that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is growing bolder in stepping up his military provocations against NATO.

   On Thursday, NATO jets intercepted a Russian spy plane — also an IL-20 — flying close to Latvian air space in the Baltic Sea.

   Canadian CF-18 Hornet fighter jets stationed in Lithuania were flying an otherwise routine training exercise when the Canadian pilots spotted the Russian spy plane.

   “The CF-18s intercepted and visually identified a Russian Federation Air Force (RFAF) Ilyushin Il-20 COOT A,” the Canadian Department of National Defense announced Saturday, adding that the Canadian pilots came away with photographs of the Russian plane, which they said had actually breached Lithuanian territory.

   The Canadian pilots tailed the Russian plane for about five minutes, making sure it was safely on its way out of NATO air space when the planes got the order to go back to their home base.

Third Intercept Of Russian Plane By Canadian Jets Since September

   A squadron of four Royal Canadian Air Force jets have been stationed in Lithuania since August, as Canada takes its designated turn policing the area as part of the NATO force in the Baltic region. And Saturday’s encounter was the third time they came face to face with Russian planes apparently spying on NATO, or at lest testing the NATO response to the Russian provocations.

   On October 7, Canadian fighter jets intercepted a Russian military transport plane flying close to NATO airspace over the Baltic Sea. They tailed that Russian plane for about 10 minutes, making sure it got to a Russian airfield. They also encountered a Russian transport plane in September.

   But Saturday’s intercept was the most dramatic and perilous yet, as the Canadian CF-18s this time caught a Russian plane on a spy mission inside a NATO-controlled area.

   The heightened tensions between Russian and Ukraine, where a new government hostile to Russia and friendly toward Europe and the West was voted into power earlier this year, has added an extra layer of tension to the repeated Russian flights around, and now into NATO space.

   The Canadian Air Force is taking on the task of keeping Russian spy planes out of NATO space in the Baltic, in addition to its mission in Iraq as part of the United States-led force carrying out airstrikes against ISIS terrorist fighters in that country.