Gulf of Mexico is under USA .....
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.
A
senior U.S. military official said that Russia has not previously flown
actual bomber patrols over the Gulf of Mexico, including during the
Cold War.
Long-range
bombers have been in the area before, but only to participate in
various visits to the region when the aircraft stopped over night at
locations in South or Central America. During the Cold War, other types
of Russian aircraft flew patrols there, including surveillance flights
and anti-submarine aircraft.
The
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't
authorized to discuss the flights publicly, also said that the pace of
Russian flights around North America, including the Arctic, have largely
remained steady, with about five incidents per year.
Col.
Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to call this a Russian
provocation. He said the Russians have a right, like any other nation,
to operate in international airspace and in international waters. The
important thing, Warren said, is for such exercises to be carried out
safely and in accordance with international standards.
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.
___
John-Thor
Dahlburg in Brussels, Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Lolita C.
Baldor and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.
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