Oddbean

About 3 days ago in the USA, there was a news story about Russian and Chinese bomber jets patrolling near Alaska within the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone. They were met by fighters from USA and Canada. We are told that Russia and China are sending a signal that they can "bring it". I looked for maps showing where exactly this happened. None of the stories I could find show a map, but some of them have a photograph from the sky, such as this one: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russia-china-nuclear-capable-bombers-patrol-united-states-rcna163611 Here is where that is: https://www.google.com/maps/@65.6581863,-172.4248224,28827m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu Zoom out to see that they were in Russia.

Well the image has an insignia indicating (I think) it is from Russon MoD meaning who knows where along their route that photo was taken. We don't really know where they went I guess that was not released. I'm not at all suprised about military drills though. Things are heating up, everybody be doing drills.

Both photos in the article are stock images from the Russian air force. There were probably no photos from the actual intercept under discussion, so the article writers pulled some from the web to illustrate the aircraft involved. That's pretty standard, especially in aviation journalism.

Also these sorts of intercepts have been going on since the Cold War. Every so often we fly a bomber by their territorial waters, and they fly one near ours. A few days ago a US B-52 was intercepted by Russian fighters near Lithuania. The US bomber was there on exercise. I'd guess this exercise by the Russians was just a tit-for-tat response.