France raised fighters into the air to escort Russian Tu-160

French fighters climbed into the air to escort the La-Channel of two Russian strategic Tu-160 bombers. This was stated by the chief of staff of the French Air Force, General Andre Lanata, reports Le Figaro. The incident occurred on February 17

“Aircraft remained over international waters. They turned back without entering the French airspace,” Lanata noted. The general emphasized that, accompanied by Russian bombers, two French fighters were involved - Rafal and Mirage -2000.

“The bombers flew up in Russia, circled the territory of Norway and the British Islands,” Lanata added. “At first they were accompanied by the aircraft of the British Air Force, and we took this role over La -Channel.” According to him, this kind of flights of Russian combat aviation near the borders of France remain a relatively rare occurrence. "There are no intensification. Similar flights are part of Russian initiatives, but they cannot be called frequent," Lanata said.

On February 17, directly on the day of the incident, the representative of the British Ministry of Defense announced it. He noted that to intercept the two Russian Tu-160s near the country's airspace over the North Sea from the Air Force base in the Lincolnshire County, Typhoon fighters were raised into the air. Russian planes did not violate the border.

On December 12, the Minister of Defense of Great Britain Michael Fallon said London is concerned about numerous cases of approaching Russian strategic bombers to the country's airspace. According to the minister, the British military held negotiations in Moscow with Russian colleagues to prevent incidents.

“We discussed with Russia the introduction of some measures to prevent any miscalculations or accidents regarding its distant aviation,” Fallon noted at a meeting of the Atlantic Council in Washington. “In recent months, we observed several cases of invasion of the British region of flight information. These aircraft did not respond to the requests of the aircraft dispatchers or the aircraft signals that we sent for the interception.”

According to the minister, the Russian military aircraft never invaded the airspace of Britain, but they repeatedly flew close to the border and flew in the "British zone of interests."

"An attempt in the Crimea and Ukraine by force to change international borders, constant pressure on the Baltic countries, the growth of long -range aviation activity, the growth of submarines - all this means that, unfortunately, Russia has turned into an opponent and the threat in respect of which we must take counter -meters," Fallon said. "We must confront Russian aggression and cannot ignore the threat emanating from Russia."