Russia reportedly warned Britain against a planned surveillance flight near Russian territory, saying its air force had been given orders to prevent an intrusion. The flight went ahead as planned.

This comes not long after an incident earlier this week in which a Royal Air Force RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft was flying in international airspace over the Norwegian and Barents Seas when a Russian MiG-31 jet carried out the “unsafe close pass” on Monday, according to the Ministry of Defence.

Moscow had also claimed the aircraft was forced out of Russian territory by the crew of the Russian fighter jet, TASS also reported. A British spokesperson denied this version of events, instead accusing the Russian aircraft of an “unsafe” manoeuvre.

“A Russian MIG-31 jet conducted an unsafe close pass of an RAF RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft as it carried out a routine operation in international airspace over the Norwegian and Barents Seas on Monday 15 August,” the spokesperson said.

“The UK aircraft was in communication with Russian civilian air traffic control and its crew operated in a safe and professional manner.”

It should be noted that the aircraft was even visible on FlightRadar24, hardly a stealth mission.

Despite the above, it happened anyway.

A Royal Air Force RC-135 ‘Rivet Joint’ intelligence gathering aircraft has been operating in international airspace near the headquarters of the Russian Northern Fleet.

The aircraft was refuelled over the North Sea by a U.S. Air Force KC-135 out of RAF Mildenhall before flying over Norway and then down to the Kola Peninsula, just off Murmansk.

This isn’t a new occurrence. In fact, these flights are pretty routine. The UK has long been gathering intelligence about Russian forces since long before the invasion of Ukraine, and it should be noted that these flights are designed to be visible so that the public and Russia know they’re happening.

If it were a secret, I would not know. Also, for those remarking ‘this isn’t new’, that’s right, but people only know this often happens because it is reported often. Why are we reporting this? Well, aside from the above, it’s essential for people to see that aircraft like this are in near-constant use rather than gathering dust in a hangar.

It should be noted, by the way, that the aircraft is in international airspace. The West does this to Russia, and Russia does this to the West.

FILE PHOTO: RAF RC-135 touches down.

What does the RC-135W do?

According to the Royal Air Force website, the RC-135W Rivet Joint is a dedicated ‘signals intelligence’ electronic surveillance aircraft that can be employed in all theatres on strategic and tactical missions. Its sensors ‘soak up’ electronic emissions from communications, radar and other systems.

“RC-135W Rivet Joint employs multidiscipline Weapons System Officer (WSO) and Weapons System Operator (WSOp) specialists whose mission is to survey elements of the electromagnetic spectrum in order to derive intelligence for commanders.”

The Royal Air Force say that Rivet Joint has been deployed extensively for Operation Shader and on other operational taskings. It had been formally named Airseeker, but is almost universally known in service as the RC-135W Rivet Joint.

The UK operates three of these aircraft.

 

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

136 COMMENTS

      • Uncertain re best option. Flying “loaded for bear” (🐻, pun intended) could be considered a provocation by Mad Vlad and the Orcs; however, the potential loss of a reconnaissance a/c to hostile action, w/ associated loss of crew, could become an Article V triggering event. Faint echoes of 1914 Sarajevo ringing, anyone? Unfortunately if NATO increases the ante in this poker game, the opponent could bring glowing chips to the table

        • That was really the gist of my argument. All the while the aircraft is alone and unarmed, any hostile act taken against it would be unequivocal and deliberate aggression.
          Protect it and you have pilots protecting “Their Chick” or “The Motherland” facing off and pilots are not known for timidity or lack of ego!

          That’s just my take ofc and it does place the crew in the unenviable position of relying on the Orcs to follow the rules.

          • However we know that Russia respects only force and sees lack of force as an invitation to demonstrate its power. Do not forget Russia has most to loose by triggering NATO article v. They cannot cope with Ukraine let alone NATO. Putin would like to frighten the world by fostering the ‘mad’ reputation… I am sure he is not mad enough to trigger a nuclear war. That leaves him only his conventional forces… say no more. So Putin and Russia are a paper tiger and we should NOT treat them with kid gloves.

          • You know the Soviets through the cold war believed that the Americans only respected force and saw the lack of it as an invitation to demonstrate it’s power?

      • I flew in RC130B2 intelligence gathering missions off China and other locals. We were so far away from any friendly forces that it would have been impossible for fighter escort. We did have CAP when we flew around North Korea and North Viet Nam. We never had CAP flying 13 miles off of Vladivostok and we always were intercepted by Russian aircraft. Our command did lose a RC103A model shot down by the Russians when it strayed over Russian territory down by Turkey.

    • I have been more than once to this region. The Norwegians are never far away and watching. Escorts to do what exactly? Start a war? These flights are on the level of diplomatic rights rather than intelligence – like free navigation of the seas. This entire region from the Arctic to the G.I.U.K. gap is among the most watched over in the world. One sortie of a few hours , most spent in transit, is no more than a gesture, pointedly so to be sure.

      • We have the right to fly our aircraft near to Russia’s borders. Current military thinking is that the best way to retain and normalise those rights is to exercise them frequently and regularly. The Russians choose to make more noise than we do about such flights because their military believes that aggressive posturing plays well with the Russian public.
        I have been to the far north of Norway. The locals suffer quite a lot of low level harassment from Russian border guards and are very keenly aware of their delicate situation.

  2. I read this story the other day and noticed it was heavily promoted by the likes of the BBC and Guardian who openly peddled the line that the “Spy Plane” was going to overfly Russian territory and that the UK was in the wrong
    Yet the questions not one of these so called experts failed to ask , is :
    1) Would the Uk fly such a sensitive piece of kit over Russian territory
    2) Would the politically correct RAF risk the lives of the crew.
    3) Can we trust that Moscow is telling the truth?

    During a time of risen tensions

    Which has me asking so why did Moscow feed such a story to 2 leftwing orgs? Is it not just a continuation of the propaganda peddled by Moscow in which to excuse its invasion of the Ukraine. You know that drip, dripping of the line that NATO and not Moscow is to blame, that sanctions are going to hurt the little people in the West more than Russia and so lets force Kyiv to stop fighting , and do the right thing and surrender to Moscow. Because as we all know Moscow is the victim here

    • I was watching today’s flight live on Flightradar24, as were over 1000 others. Hardly hush-hush, do the media not know such facilities exist or do they just choose to ignore them.
      Just reviewed today’s flight – it spent nearly 2 hours flying gentle circuits 100km off shore before heading for home.

      • Oh you wouldn’t believe how sloppy and ignorant parts of the media are. Journalistic standards have noticeably plummeted over the last 20 years or so. Never look for conspiracy when stupidity is the obvious answer.

        • I genuinely think it is because the journalists have zero expertise or even a passing interest in military affairs, tactics, equipment or capabilities and this then gets passed onto the general public who genuinely believe a type 45 destroyer can fire photon torpedoes and use tractor beams to defeat hostile Russian Orcs or that a single squad of SAS could defeat the entire Chinese army. Its just madness and bordering on stupidity. Any journalist applying for a position where commenting on military matters is involved should be asked some simple questions to determine their competence.
          1) Does the type 45 destroyer have photon torpedoes
          2) could a squad of SAS deployed to Taiwan defeat the entire Chinese Army?
          3) Does the QE class aircraft carrier (costing 3.5 billion each- as this is always mentioned and probably will be mentioned when the ships are 50 years old and about to leave service) have aircraft onboard?
          4) Is a “massive show of force” the deployment of 2000 troops to Estonia or the deployment of 6 typhoons to Cyprus?

          • I’d just ask them what do port and starboard mean. I think the answer would go something like this.😯😏 😣😫😪

          • They would probably answer that port is something to drink and starboard is some sort of horoscope game!

          • My wife is a freelance journalist and frequently covers in the BBC newsroom when they are short-handed. Her view is that the BBC is so keen to show its’ independence that it refuses to state the official line without also stating an alternative view, even when the official line is clearly more accurate than the latter. There is also a view that using knowledge and understanding to shape news reports is ‘interference’ and creates bias aka an excuse not to bother.

      • They absolutely do know Flightradar24 exists.

        I’d hardly call the BBC left-wing in its news department.

        Both the BBC and The Guardian have some dodgy contributors though. The Guardian even had a piece by the PRC ambassador a few days ago. It didn’t last long on their frontpage though – perhaps they got a friendly call from SIS?

        • I seen that- was it the article about how the PRC ambassador to Australia was basically telling the Australians that China’s world view was the correct one and how dare anyone question this and if you questioned China’s world view and President Xi’s dictation than you were going to burn in the flaming fires of hell?
          And the guardian published that. They should have just said the PRC ambassador needs a psychiatry assessment as he is clearly deluded and suffering from hallucinations and disassociated from reality.

          • It is okay to report facts… The PRC ambassador did say those things and it was newsworthy. The Guardian article and subsequent ones on the same subject both reported what China had said and the reaction of Australia. The articles also point out the murky side of Chinas tactics here. What it is not okay to do is report known lies and misinformation. So I am totally okay with that particular Guardian article.

            It is not like the mad Daily mail article regarding the 4 inch guns on our Type 45S

      • Because, despite the ignorant attitude of people like you, they are quite good at reporting the news in general.

        They have bias on some things and are naïve on others, but they are trusted to be professional (hence why people go to them to publish their stories).

        • 😂 Ignorance!

          Or maybe an opinion. Deary me. I can read the news “in general” in many places, including the Guardian, which one cannot get away from online as they top headlines when searching “news” on Google.

          Curious that you barge in with that insult yet when I have replied to your “ignorance” on military matters here before, when you’ve been posting about “Tory cuts” and ignoring those of others, you are silent with no reply, or counter post.

          “People like you”

          They do say ignorance is bliss. You’re clearly full of it and need to look in a mirror sometime. 👍

          • And oh how lovely….on the subject of defence cuts, which as mentioned you ignored my replies regards my quest for balance when moaning about Tories yet ignoring the cuts of beloved Labour, on several occasions.
            That applies to you and another lovely poster a month or so ago who denied all and told me to stop replying to him!
            ( He knows who he is, hello!! 🖐)

            So, just today on UKAFC blog Gab posts a nice list of Labour success 1997 to 2010, which I myself have listed many times but he does it sooo much better than me.

            “For RAF, Labour delivered cuts including entire Jaguar and Sea Harrier fleets plus several Tornado and GR9 Sqns. Joined F-35 but only got to order 2, the instrumented BK-1 and BK-2. Against promises of 232 Typhoon, they diverted 24 to Saudi Arabia and capped Tranche 3 at 40.”

            “For the Army, the Labour era was the wondrous period in which MRAV and TRACER became FRES, then FRES UV, then no, let’s go with FRES SV instead. Summed all together these programs delivered exactly 0, zero, and i repeat literally zero, operational vehicles.”

            “History tells us that the much celebrated SDR1998 promised 32 escorts (down from 35) and 10 SSN (down from 12) which became 25 and 8 in the 2003 Review and by the end of the Labour era were actually 24 and 7. With just Boat 4 of the Astute class ordered in the whole Labour era.”

            “The ASTUTE class procurement also began well before Labour went into power. The only class that is truly daughter of the Labour era is the Type 45, beginning with the decision to pull out of HORIZON tri-national project in 1999 and finishing with decision to cap at just 6 in 2008”

            “People often associate the Royal Navy amphibious fleet with the Strategic Defence Review of 1998, but HMS Ocean and the 2 LPDs of the ALBION class were actually ordered before it, under Major’s government. Only the program for the BAYs reached its contract award under Labour.”

            I shall be cutting and pasting this for future posting to “people like you”

          • Very much doubt he will answer, as your posts and replies are always very reasonable, thoughtful and full of information and facts. People don’t like being challenged by knowledge mate.

          • Couldn’t give a f****ing toss mate either way. I try to be respectful and polite but with attitude like that “People like you” shit well have some of this.

          • 😂👏🏻 well said👍🏻 much more eloquent than my direct (current watered down) style. Alas many in here don’t like “opinions” that don’t align with their own spoon fed views. I mean I disagree with the majority in this forum on a couple of issues we won’t mention 😉 however despite polar opposite views still respect the other 99% of what they say but Wee Tammy dear oh dear 😂. 🙈

            🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧

        • Local news yes, hence the large number of subsidised TV and radio stations, nationally, not any longer as they have an agenda to push, regardless of facts and the truth. Professional? Not at all, as any organisation which is both niave and have a bias (as you have stated) is certainly not Professional.

        • No need for insulting language, sometimes I’m on the same page as Daniele sometimes I’m not, but he has clear and well reasoned views. Someone is allowed to have a view and your allowed to have a differing view, but discussing it respectfully is important. As a labour voter who reads widely I also tent to consider the Guardian overly political and not a paper with a great balance or showing journalistic balance and integrity, it’s on my list of overtly to political and poorly balanced broad sheets that sometimes has some stuff in to think about.

        • BTL (and to be fair ATL) at the Guardian is quite the chimps’ tea party.

          Sometimes there are gems.

          In one poverty-porn column from one of the more creative contributors fulminating about low levels of state support for a particular case, the case herself emerged in the comments and revealed that there was a partner bringing 20k per annum into the household. Not, of course, mentioned in the article.

          Plus, of course, Max Gogarty and Operation Clark County (when the Guardian decided to get their readers to write unsolicited letters to voters in a US election to get them to behave like civilised liberal left Londoners).

          https://www.theguardian.com/travel/blog/2008/feb/14/skinsblog

          https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/18/uselections2004.usa2

          • They all have their biases. Guardian is leftie and North London liberal heaven with very idealistic views and sometimes almost propaganda for Russia/PRC/etc. but at least it gives you the other side of the story. Telegraph is very Torygraph and right leaning. Times well you can say more balanced but Murdoch owned. Independent, not sure if it is independent anymore as owned by the son of a Russian Oligarch so never write stories about their owners. BBC these days mostly leftie but do try and present a balanced argument. Oddly the Daily Fail at least seem to have better military stories than some of above.

            The trick is to read around and get all different points of view and then make up your mind. But in the days of the internet there is no excuse really you can search and find all kind of information on any topic and apply a bit of rational thought to make a call of if it is bulls**t or not. Whether the UK/World population is geared up to do that answers on a postcard*

            * but see examples of polarization on COVID, Russia media control and narrative at home, us elections etc etc 🙂

          • I’m rather more a-plague-on-all-their-houses than that.

            I would not trust any of them, without some fact checking. My trusted bands are individual writers, who’s skills can be assessed and whose biases known.

            IMO the Indy stopped being a newspaper around 2000, and finally sunk their reputation with the Johann Hari plagiarism / fabrication / demonisation scandal, and their failure to do anything to reform themselves whatsoever.

            The Guardian is a specialist in misleading headlines for social media debunked in para 1. and no separation between news and opinion.

            Telegraph, as you comment – an opposite but imo perhaps less sanctimonious / hypocritical foil to the Guardian.

            The Times seems to be misleading scoop on Sundays central at present, plus various long term questionable campaigns.

            I would give a little more weight to the FT, but their current award-winning data journalism lead seems to me to be weak in slipshod handling of data sources, and often category errors and more conclusions than the analysis supports:
            eg here he is having his pants pulled down by FullFact over exaggerated conclusions, incomplete data and poor analysis early in the Covid pandemic:

            https://fullfact.org/health/limits-what-we-can-say-about-early-lockdowns/
             
            So I’m with HL Mencken !

            ‘As I get older, all I want nowadays is competence, simple competence, in anything, from adultery to zoology.’

      • I’m more left than centre politically and even I consider the Guardian bias and not great. I read it because I like reading different papers, but of all the broad sheets I would put it on the not so good pile….times is probably the most rounded of the broad sheets at present, the telegraph is a bit more of the same “to political” to be a really good read so like the guardian I tend to stick it as a balancing secondary read.

        • I have both left and right wing views, so I guess I’m centre to centre right as the right sides stronger. Guardian just irritates with its obvious agenda and bias.

          We get the Daily Mail to give to my father who’s flat bound, but boy does that print some crap. The weekend magazine is the best bit. Don’t buy any other papers but read lots online, funnily enough including the Guardian. They all have their own agenda so yes best to read far and wide for a balanced view.

          I think the worst I’ve seen is the Express. Bonkers.

          • my father-in-law was an express reader, I use to love having a read, there was always a snowmageddon or a deadly something or other….I tend to think of the Mail, express, people etc as a sort of adult fantasy comic, I even have a sneaky read of the Sun just for shits and giggles. To be honest the older I’ve got the more like you I tend to have what you would call both left and right views, once you hit an age I think you realise their is never a purist answer and sometimes you just have to mix and match what seems to work. One of the big issues with modern politics as far as I’m concerned is parties seeming ridge fixation with either right or left wing political dogma…

          • I agree. I think things have got far worse since the Lib Dems demise as no matter what you think of them, we need a reasonably strong party that sits between the right and left in order to keep both reigned in a bit. For many years we had a centre Right party in the Conservatives and Centre Left party in Labour. We now have a Labour party desperately trying to stay Centre Left with a number of far left people trying to disrupt it and a now firmly Right wing Conservative party with reasonable contingent of MPs trying to move it even further right… Extremes in politics are never good.

    • Those BBC “journalists” and editors are the first to scream for politicians to be held to account for misleading the public, or the House.
      Utter hypocrites.

    • I don’t really agree on the bbc article, it was actually pretty good and make very clear the U.K. position as well as the RAF. It also explained that Russia apart from making up unevidenced claims also constantly infringed on Nato air space. I did not see any bias, just an article documenting clearly HMRs refute of Russia’s claim and some history of Russian crappy behaviour.

    • Hello farouk. As you know it’s the MoD’s PR people who feed these stories to the press. Depending on the recipient the story is spun one way or the other. The P.R. people try to ‘hook’ the media through one means or another. At a spy trial last century the case collapsed because the ‘spies’ pointed out the secret information they were sharing initially came from the R.A.F.’s own publicity machine.

        • The ABC trial.
          link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_trial

          It sparked an amazing intervention in Parliament from Enoch Powell who wanted the head of the CPS brought to the bar of the House to apologise to Parliament for attempting to stifle debate ‘Parliament’ he thundered ‘was the highest court in the land’ (before we joined the EEC, EC or EU when that ceased.

          It was the MoD’s publicity machine that told the BBC and the world that Argentina’s bombs weren’t working during the Falkland’s War. I think the operation is bit cannier now. It couldn’t be worse.

          • Ah yes. D Campbell, the C in ABC. He still researches some similar stuff to me, I’ve had occasional contacts with him.

            The Post Office Tower is secret you know, even though it’s also bang in the middle of London and on postcards! I recall ABC trial mentioned that too.

            I thought some Labour MP also mentioned it.

          • Yes. I think Campbell is a medlar; he believes a state within a state is out of control and only he, Duncan Campbell, knows the truth: It’s the age old issue – who guards the guards? I believe the M.P. who mentioned the real name of Col. B. in the House was Joan Lestor (please check). She claimed ‘everyone’ around Parliament knew who he was. The CPS head then sent a letter to the Speaker of the House to say shut up. Powell went ballistic.

            Got to go. Nursing someone.

          • He is faaaar to left for my tastes and like others seemed to favour Moscow, and be against all the intelligence agencies and GCHQ especially for daring to do to others what they do to us, that is, spy.

            He’s not keen on surveillance either. However, he is an excellent researcher and I’ve learned much over the years from his findings.

          • Some of the organisations which spy on behalf of the UK government do so in clear and obvious breach of the law of the land – that is why Duncan Campbell was so hostile towards so much of the intelligence community.
            It is also the case that the Americans do a great deal of illicit snooping, using the UK as a place beyond the purview of Congress. “RAF” Croughton and “RAF” Menwith Hill spring to mind.

          • You’re right Cedric, I’m well read on all this. The US snoop on our behalf here and we snoop in the US from a location in Maryland. That way, our politicians can say “we” do not spy on our citizens. We just get the cousins to do it, and we return the favour.

            Those locations are RAF as the base commander is of that service. Both are well known, and there are less well known locations.

            I have no problem with surveillance myself, but agree that RIP act is a minefield with many loop holes regards warrants. Considering there are over 2,000 islamists in this country who wish the west harm ( ironic then that they are even here) then to me this mass interception is necessary.

          • The Post Office tower is a switching centre for all sorts of telecomms stuff, including some sensitive channels. The GPO (as it then was) decided that it was easier to apply high levels of security to all traffic rather than try to treat commercial and sensitive channels differently.
            Duncan Campbell used to be very good at drawing “interesting” conclusions from seemingly innocuous information in the public domain.

          • It’s a fascinating location. London’s cable tunnel network runs directly beneath it. Many or most of the PO Towers microwave links are now defunct given the MoDs discarding of the Boxer/Uniter network, which linked into it via Stokenchurch tower and on to places likeHunters Stone, which were built of concrete to survive nuclear blast or built to bypass target areas. Lots of that traffic has moved to fibre optics as microwave is easy to intercept.

            Agree, much is still sensitive, I’ve a fairly educated idea where some of those cable links run through. DC himself rode a folding bike through some of them, at that time they were covered by the OSA.
            The PO suggested his revelations were fake and photos from a film studio.

            Yes, he did draw conclusions, not always on the mark. However, if you study this stuff enough It’s surprising just what is there to find in the public domain. It might seem innocuous, but if you have an idea how stuff links together and see that HMG have a habit of not knowing what left and right hands are doing, then there are revelations to be had for the likes of DC.

            “Preston” is one recent example.

    • I watchesd and read the same things and saw no ‘peddling’ of anything. ‘Two left wing organisations’ ? The BBC is scared stiff of the government, mainly tory ones, with good reason. It has softpeddled on the rank incompetence of the last twelve years of this ‘adminsitration’ and its predecessors. The Gyardian is left of centre but is a strong critic of Russia and has had a reporter banned from Russian because of his reports and a book.

    • I read those stories. None of them were pointing the finger at the UK… They were simply reporting that Russia said the UK was acting in bad faith. The stories I read on both the BBC and Guardian also pointed out that these were routine flights. In fact they were very similar in content to this UKDJ article…

    • I don’t know about the newspapers, but recent experience suggests that the BBC is severely lacking in journalists who have an understanding of how military games are played. Worse, they don’t seem inclined to find out, but would rather report from a position of ignorance – this is a far more authentic way to conduct their business (allegedly).

  3. Slightly off topic, but keeping with Russia, at this moment in time, Sevastopol is under heavy attack. Even more interesting is was also reported that Moscow flew out 38 jets from the Crimea a few hours ago:

      • See attached video footage of me playing “My heart bleeds for them” on the violin.

        ERROR 404 FOOTAGE NOT FOUND.

        Oh well, at least they get to skip the queues at the Kerch Bridge.

    • It’s a pity some of these 38 aircraft weren’t taken out earlier but Ukraine forces must be getting more confident with these increasing level of attacks in the Crimea. Maybe now the Russian Black Sea fleet will also get targeted!. It will be good for Ukraine to take out or damage any ships and subs residing there and even the Kerch Bridge might be now coming within range.
      Strength to Ukraine 🇺🇦!

      • Well the USA has confirmed they’ve integrated the AGM-88 onto Ukraine SU-29 aircraft, so it begs the question if they’ve also managed to integrate any air to air missiles too… 🤔

        • Yes, let’s hopefully lots of deadly good stuff has been upgraded on the quiet for Ukraine’s airforce as with their army. It will be quite something if Ukraine gets Crimea back and maybe then they can hopefully rebuild their navy and push back even further South East and get fuller access into the Azov and Mariupol.
          Strength to Ukraine, it’s people and President and to all the countries supporting her!

      • It is worth remembering that the UK signed a deal with Ukraine in November to supply them with naval vessels, and even sent a D type to the meeting to show them that we can build really fancy ships. The threat from the Black Sea seems to have diminished, but there are rumours that the Royal Navy is keen to put on a show there – MoD’s resident joker suggested that some of the oligarchs’ yachts should be driven out of their lairs in Turkey and subjected to ‘attention’.

    • It seems the Ukrainian special forces have been trained by the SAS in how to infiltrate and then attack an airbase causing disproportionate loses to parked and very expensive high performance jets.
      Russia has lost 2 full squadrons of SU35’s (their allegedly best high performance strike aircraft to Ukraine and are now selling them to Iran in exchange for UAV’s/ drones. Says it all really.
      The HIMARs strikes on ammo dumps continue apace and are causing the Russian offensive in Ukraine to grind to a halt.
      Airforce loses in ground strikes by special forces have been very high- at least 50% of Russia’s available maritime strike platforms around the black sea have been destroyed.
      The strikes in Crimea have not been contained and the general populace in Russia are wondering why thousands of Russian’s who holiday in Crimea or moved there after its illegal occupation are now fleeing back to Russia with tales of destruction. How dare the Ukrainians fight back? this wasn’t how it was supposed to go when they illegally invaded, looted, raped and mass murdered their way into Ukraine.

      • Be interesting to see how the Ukrainian spetznaz have been doing this. I suppose some of those switchblade 300 or something similar would be good and shove it up the exhaust on a su-35 or something parked like a tanker. Then you are a bit further away and not so traceable and don’t have to get into the airfield to plant c-4 or similar charges.

        I guess in a few years time once this is hopefully all over we will get the stories of how it was done.

    • What I find truly fascinating is how smart phones and social media have warped so many peoples reactions to life threatening or deadly events. The number of people who will record on their phones people in Danger or distress instead of trying to do something to help or wander about with their phones recording during what are essentially deadly perils to their own lives.

      Its almost like we have developed a third response to danger…the do something…the run away….the stand behind our phones and record it.

      I do wonder if there is a deep reaction going on with the generation of very heavy phone/social media users, in which reality is switched around a bit…in which by recording it you are doing something useful ( to the social media world if not the real world) as well as protecting yourself by rendering what it happing unreal….if I’m observing the event through my phone it’s not actually real and cannot really effect or hurt me.

      Personally if I see a person in danger I aways react ( I cannot help myself, I’m well know for interrupting a nice day out by finding a casualty to attend to) and if I see something that’s dangerous to me I also react ( generally by running away, managing or avoiding)…the thought of whipping out my phone and recording the tragedy or danger is so alien that I literally cannot understand what these people are thinking…if the city I was in was being bombed or attackedI would be doing something ( packing supplies, finding shelter or heading of to help people).

      But then I’m that person at is constantly scanning for a catastrophic outcomes and play by the rule it’s better to be wrong a few times and prepared for worst that be be unprepared when something bad happens ( it always does happen to someone) and I think anyone who does not have this risk asses be ready approach is living a fairy land. The first sniff of a pandemic or issue and I mean the very first sniff …”look at this” alert from the WHO , I’m reviewing what’s know and if the R0 or case mortality looks iffy, I’ve got in 3 months supply of food for the family before every else is saying covid what ? As an example I had stocked up by the second week of Jan, a month before the first European covid case, all the delivery driver were like that’s a lot of food, I was like yep give it 6 weeks and everyone will be doing this. although to be fair I did not see the whole toilet roll reaction coming when there was a perception of a threat to supply chains.

  5. Amazing that Russia can spare a MIG-31 under the circumstances. As for the unsafe manoeuvre, well that’s probably the first time the pilot has flown all year so his flying skills are probably a tad rusty… 🤷🏻‍♂️

    • You should bear in mind the possibility that the Mig-31 pilot was attempting to show how skilled he is – “I can fly my aircraft high speed within 6 inches of your aircraft without hitting it”.

      • I suppose you think “Top Gun” is a documentary?
        Professional pilots don’t pull the stunts that you suggest because they’d be grounded or dead very quickly. I imagine that would especially to Russian pilots whose aircraft are badly maintained and only get a fraction of the flying hours that pilots in the West get.

    • Does anyone know of these aircraft carry any BVRAAMs for self defense? I thought the P-8s were wired up for these too? Aren’t all the “big planes” very vulnerable lto long range AAMs?

      • No, through all the decades RC135 has been flying with SAC along the periphery of the Soviet Union, China, and now with the RAF there has been no hint of them carrying any weaponry.

      • No. They would not have the radar and associated fire control for BVR. They wouldn’t be in harms way during a shooting war anyway.

        Nimrods used to carry Sidewinder, not BVR, close range, this was rushed during the Falklands so they could take out any enemy maritime patrol aircraft they encountered, bit different to a enemy fighter jet. They did come across an argentine patrol aircraft prior but only had foul language to engage it with.

        As for P8, usual story, won’t happen until its a rushed UOR.

      • Hence why a typhoon or f35 flying in support would seem a prudent idea. If Russia puts up some piece of shit aircraft like a Mig31 the F35 can quietly slip in alongside the damn thing and ask it to politely sod off back to its shitty country presided over by a mass murdering dictator.
        Any Russian’s care for some Novichok tea? I hear its very refreshing and widely available in the Kremlin.

    • Probably.

      Certainly, as a generality, any electronics close by don’t survive a blast from a powerful radar in EW mode.

    • I presume that they are passive only.

      But you raise a good point, how powerful is the MiG31 radar at 500 metres?
      That would make mess of sensitive receivers.

  7. Russia’s excuses are becoming as laughable as Irans. Why do they not realise how pathetic they are with their endless bull.

    • I’m just waiting for the Russian people to wake up and demand change for being dudded so long by their filthy rich, hypocritical and cowardly dudes in leadership and all their BS. The people of China might follow suit one day. Not that the West is perfect either.

      • I’m afraid it’s going to take a long time. Even those that have access to free media from the West, including those many of those in the West, still listen to Putin’s propaganda and give it at least equal authority…
        As for those without access to free media, many do believe the propaganda. They’re not sophisticated enough to discern the inconsistencies and the logical dissonance of the overwhelming but amateurish propaganda.

        • “I’m afraid it’s going to take a long time.”

          I’m afraid you’re probably right. We live in a world where people chose to belive all sorts of stuff, much of it clearly bonkers. Conspiracy theories, false news and cons crowd in on every side, hell you can’t get go a week without more than a few con phone calls (and some are clearly Brits).

          Given that Flat Earth Society is growing rapidly online at the moment and too many people believed the lies some spread about Covid being a hoax and its hardly surprising many believe the propaganda being pushed by Putin. None of it helped by the sloppy and or agenda laiden reporting in the ‘free’ press.

          The trouble is with so much ‘noise’ information overload is the inevitable result and people have to make a choice about what they are going to believe. That choice will be shaped by their own world view and will reinforce that world view as a result, hence, I belive the drift to extremes.

          I think things only change when people see it or feel it for themselves e.g. the current cost of life crisis, or are shocked by a particular event such as 9/11.

          My worry is that we will only snap out of our digital world and information and data overload when the real world finally kicks the door in, by which time it might well be too late. Pick any number of threats, climate change, geopolitical madness, whatever. Something will come along and we’ll all face that pilot moment when they look up and see what it is they are about to fly into – it’s called the “oh shit” moment because that, or something similar it usually the last thing the pilots say.

          So yeh, folk will wake up one day…

          Cheers CR
          Sorry in a slightly fatalistic mood this morning – don’t why 🙄

          • I’ve been battling the theres-no-virus/ 5G/ anti-mask/ anti-lockdown/ anti-vax conspiracy brigade on social media since the start of the pandemic. They mainly fall into 3 group;-
            • mad – certifiable fruitcakes like Ike
            • bad – con artists who do it to gain influence and raise money; eh London Real
            • sad – those that can’t accept that bad things just happen in the world, or rather to them, and that they’re personally targeted by an evil conspiracy.

            Unfortunately once someone falls down the rabbit hole they start to belief other madder conspiracies. So pretty much all anti-vaxxers also deny climate-change is real, and they think Putin is a misunderstood guy forced into action by evil NATO. Quite a few others believe 9/11 was an inside job, the earth is flat, and the WEF is run by lizards from the Andromeda Galaxy. Quite a lot Nate also anti-Semitic when you scratch the surface.

            I think we’ve always had this 10% of society who are bonkers, it’s just before the internet and social media we just weren’t aware of how many they are or how loud they could be.

            As for Russia, the situation is far worse. Reality will only dawn if
            • the entire world makes them a pariah and even bans all travel to/from Russia – sadly it will take more than just the West
            • ordinary Russians starting to see more and more friends and relatives returning home in bodybags.

          • I read an interesting article recently that talked about a young chap in the US who had watched his dad go down that rabbit hole. The process went on for a few years and the lad (he was only in his mid teens if I remember rightly) when he first noted his dad’s odder view points. He tried to engage in conversation and dissuade his dad using ‘facts’ and evidence. All to no avail.

            Then one day he tried a different tact. His dad was quite religous and he asked his dad what he thought God would think about what we were doing to the planet. That opened a jink in his dad’s belief system and the lad (now at college age) was able to exploit the opening and explore and challenge his dad’s conspiracy beliefs over time. His dad is now back in the ‘real world’ and actually looks to tackle conspiracies and help others now.

            Another article on the same subject talked about having to find something fundemental to the individual something that was part of their world view and leaver of that to bring them back to reality. A tough process, so I wish you luck in your efforts to counter the rubbish in those corners of the internet.

            Cheers CR

          • Yes I’ve seen stories like that, where a family member or close friend has been able to use some greater fundamental belief to undermine the conspiracy theories. It really is like deprogramming a cult member, or a member of ISIS these days.

            Trying to reason with people on social media won’t work, tried it. Best I’ve been able to do is shadow some of those responsible for pushing out conspiracy theories to begin with and reporting anything they post that has false information on health. One guy who has been anti-vaxx since the spurious claims against MMR has finally given up on using Facebook after his latest 30 day ban. Hopefully his 50k+ followers will not hear any new totally fictitious theories from him. 🤞🏻

            BUT you can be sure a lot of this is due to Putin’s internet trolls, like the St Petersburg based Internet area search Agency. Anything to sow division in the west and undermine people’s faith in democracy and our elected leaders they will push.

          • To be fair, there are those that have valid concerns and questions…I want people to question should we lock down remove civil liberties for the protection of society, theses are important debates as are some of the more subtle debates around the vaccine programme ( should we have forced social care staff to have the vaccine, should children have had the vaccine when the balance of risk from covid vs the vaccine is so close for kids and the vaccine does not prevent transmission). The ethics of shorting the review stages on a new technology like RNA messenger vaccines and the potential low level theoretic risks around autoimmune disease ( which is one of the areas we will be waiting around 5 years before we understand and get the peer reviewed data) against the massive and real risk to the adult population of a Disease with natural R0 of 5+ and a 1% case mortality rate ( most people I think still don’t get just how scary covid has been from a public health whole society point of view). These are all important things to debate and if you just shut down people as anti vaccination nutters or anti lockdown nutters you limit the real need to discuss and consider these important issues.

            don’t get me wrong I a firm advocate of the lock down to protect society ( I don’t think people have any comprehension of what would have happened if we had just let covid rip, before the vaccine, as a starter it would have collapsed the healthcare system and we would have seen a lot of dead people from lack of emergency responses ( even now we are suffering badly form this as the health service still had the living shit kicked out of it by covid).

            I also have had the 3 vaccines, but even though I’m a healthcare professional I studies the data around risk from covid 19 and where it was going vs short term vaccine risk and specificity the peer review papers around RNA vaccine and if covid 19 was any less of an issue and risk that it was I probably would have waited and had the more traditional vaccine and not the RNA vaccine which I had in the end ( low level theoretical risk never outweighs present and active danger to life).

            I think to a degree the media and health services were a little to much on the side of don’t worry the vaccine is fine and did not really engage in the subtle discussions of “well there are risks and these are what they are” “but they are tiny compared to catching covid” that gave the more nutter anti antivaccination types a way in…. as an example one of my posts on this site was removed when all I did was quote and discuss the risk management and risk balance reviews and evidence based published by the JCVR when someone asked why young children were not being vaccinated.

          • No I don’t think claiming that 5G caused coronavirus (even in countries with out 🤷🏻‍♂️), that Bill Gates had nanites in the vaccines(seriously as an IT professional I’ve never seen any of his tech work properly 🤷🏻‍♂️), that the vaccination is a programme to cull the population are valid concerns. And as a health professional I imagine you would have been outraged by Piers Corbyn’s comparison of NHS hospitals to Auschwitz.

            Governments were making educated guesses on lockdowns for Corvid-19, but played safe; ie precautionary principle. The figures shown that while the lockdowns did cause some deaths, they saved far more lives in the process.
            Perhaps I was lucky, but I have a good friend who is a virologist and has worked on vaccines. From talking to her, and research on the subject I did (reading, not watching YouTube vids like the tinfoil brigade), I was happy to have the Az Oxford vaccine. It’s not the first RNA vaccine, it was a proven concept, and the risks were far smaller than from catching Corvid-19.

            Unfortunately you cannot rationally debate with the conspiracy brigade. So whatever you said, “the vaccines are perfectly safe” or “the vaccines have a tiny risk compared to Corvid” the conspiracy theorists will twist your words around to prove their point. Or just dismiss you as a paid shill of ‘big pharma’.
            No matter what approach, the government or media took in any country, the conspiracy theorists will not believe them. They condemn ‘the MSM’ for pushing the vaccines, but if any article is published by the MSM that showed it was anything less than 100% effective or 100% safe then they would repeat it as ‘proof’ of their position. Classic cognitive dissonance.

            Even now, they claim the vaccines “don’t work” because vaccinated people can still catch Corvid-19. They don’t even understand, or want to understand how vaccines work.

            You can lead a conspiracy theorist to facts, but you can’t make them think.

          • To be honest Sean it’s not the hard line nut jobs that concern me it’s the 10% or so of the population that have vaccine hesitancy or the 40% that have not fully topped up their vaccination for some reason and the 10% of 24 month olds without amMR coverage …these are the groups you can engage with in an honest dialog. To be honest I’m not outraged by Either Corbin as I’m happy to listen to anyone, sometimes you have to listen to understand where the madness comes from and then you can refute..I’ve got a real dislike of de-platforming people as if you stop listening you cannot argue back or understand where a view has come from..( the only time you should de-platform is for security reasons around the incitement to violence).

          • And there you’d be wrong.

            Because it’s the hard-line nut jobs that spread uncertainty and doubt. They don’t convert many, they are a small minority. But plant the seed of doubt in others, the possibility that they’ve not been told the whole truth.
            And that’s how you get the vaccine hesitant, that’s how you get people not having the booster, etc, etc.

            You can’t refute and reason with a zealot. The likes of Piers Corbyn, David Ike, etc have made these beliefs part of who they are, how they define themselves. It’s what gives them status and standing in their cultist community. You might as well try and ask them to cut their own leg off.

            As for the Russian backed anti-vaccine trolls. You can try and refute for as long as you like, but unless you offer to pay them more than their employers you’re going to get nowhere.

            Do we allow people to shout “Fire” in a crowded cinema?
            Do we allow racial or misogynistic hate speech? No we ‘no platform’ it by prosecuting the bastards. It’s just a shame we don’t do that with anti-vaxxers. Do you have an estimate of the tens, or hundreds or thousands worldwide that they are responsible for killing by planting doubt about vaccines into their minds?

            Feel free to try and refute.
            You’ll achieve nothing.

          • I’m not so sure Sean, I’ve seen a lot of evidence that specific groups have some very specific reasons for vaccine hesitancy, from a cultural mistrust, to a general miss understanding, most of these groups when engaged with rational discussion that tries to understand what the barrier are can be brought around. Some people who believe anything are so far gone in there convictions it would take years to decondition them ( they are essentially radicalised in the same way as a victim of a cult or extremist group).

            As for those who spout hate speech and those anti vaccination types some of it relates to morality and ethics vs law So we do not allow people to kill or incite violence so those who put that forward are essentially breaking both accepted codes of morals and ethics and inciting people to break the law ( which in the case of murder is an offence in law). Morally we allow people to make bad medical decisions including not have vaccines. Yes anti vaccinators led many to make bad choices, but actually how many deaths had that creates…if we have 5% of the population unvaccinated due to covid anti vaccinators which is say 2 million people in the U.K. of those how many are what we would call higher risk ( multiple conditions, older etc), let’s say 10% of that ( most non vaccinated are younger fitter people) so 200,000 people, even in the very high risk groups case mortality is around 2-3% so if all of those 200,000 at risk people got covid it would kill around 6 thousand, which is and sounds a lot, but from a public health point of view it’s not ( and in reality many of those individuals are in a groups that have an annual mortality risk of around 4% anyway).

            In trust we have always let people get away with telling lies that kill people, everyone with an ounce of understanding knew that Cigarette manufacturers were filling the word with lies and scrap sudo science for many decades while willfully harming and lead endless millions of individuals to painful early deathsworld wide, but we let them do it and still many counties do. The food industry and public health absolutely know, that sugar, sweeteners, highly processed foods and transfats are killing even more people and leading to more harm that smoking ever did, but we let them peddle their sudo science and lies all over as well as bombard us with adverts for food that is essentially poison, even pretending it’s healthy.

            So yes the anti vaccinators do cause death, but actually most of our vaccine programs hit 94-5% by the time children are 5, almost all at risk people in this country are vaccinated with covid, so there actual impact from a public health point of view is negligible…personally if your worried about lies killing people, really get into the high quality independent research undertaken on the damage of sugar, sweeteners, transfats and highly process foods ( so the stuff made by evert food company including so call health related foods like weight watcher) then look at the adverts on your TV and what’s on your suppermark shelves then you will truly get to see what a truly damaging and epic trolling and miss information campaign looks like…..but even that pales into comparison with the oil industry ( they had proven what global warming would do 30 years ago and buried it, then went on a campaign of miss information for 30 years, knowing they were going to in all likelihood end billions ( my first career choice was environmental science and that was my first degree and I was being taught catastrophe climate change as a reality 34 years ago)…

            All in all the tin hat anti vaccinators are just a bunch of idiot amateurs that can be are are combated effectively ( 90-95% vaccine uptakes proves this) . My true disgust it at the law abiding professions of tobacco, big food and the oil industry…they are purveyors of death, destruction and evil driven selfish want and greed that have and will eclipse even the true bastards like Hitler and Stalin.

          • There is strong evidence that the government stamped on all attempts by “the scientists”, especially the SAGE committee, to indicate that the situation was more nuanced than HMG portrayed. One of the specific problems was/is that Covid-19 effects and mortality vary *very* strongly as a function of both age and general health, and so it was easy to distrust the stories.

          • Snap
            I replied to one such post this morning about how so many feel that the Ukraine should be made to surrender seek peace , allow Moscow to keep what it has taken, then bring then back into normal society so they can turn the gas taps on. I quote from the article:
            “The key question is whether the UK gas price spike is a short-term problem. Peace in Ukraine and a rehabilitated Russia opening the gas taps would fix it almost overnight. Given that it takes at least a couple of years to build an LNG terminal and longer to build an LNG carrier there’s no obvious quick fix.”

            

          • Yes, that’s Putin’s hope. That the West caves in because of gas-prices, inflation, etc and we appease Russia in order to get cheap gas. Even if it doesn’t happen, pushing the idea creates discord in the West and undermines public support for our arming of Ukraine.

            It really is quite insidious, but then Putin was KGB so it shouldn’t be a surprise. Evil is not too strong a word for him.

          • Yes but when the real world kicks the door in most people’s first reaction is to grab their phone so the can record it and post it online….

          • As long as people are comfortable enough they will not rise up. And in Russia etc you always have a very big stick the state carries. But everything had a tipping point and war normally accelerate this. Russia should know this, see 1917 for an example

        • Have you ever been to Russia? The way that most educated Russian people keep themselves safe is by having a very good idea of exactly what their government is up to and exactly what they need to do/avoid in order not to draw attention to themselves. The problem is not that the people are ignorant, it is that any attempt to voice displeasure is always met with a brutal response.

          • No it’s too dangerous for me to travel there, it’s a blanket ban across my company.

            But I have many Russian friends in London and they tell me the same thing about their compatriots back there… The majority are racist xenophobes with a dangerous paranoia and over-inflated nationalism, lacking in scruples and morals, and generally pretty degenerate.

      • Doubt it the Russian peasantry are just that. Peasants. They believe what they are told and shown on the Russian state media. Uneducated and living in shacks with no central heating, mud roads and little to no electricity. Most of them survive on what they can grow in their yards.
        Utterly corrupt country. Where does Russia’s £500 billion a year trade surplus go too? not the general population and not into infrastructure to make the country better.

  8. Good tell them to get stuffed. If they try and do a silly pass again lean out of the window and fire off a javelin. That’ll learn ’em

  9. These are very valuable assets and we only have 3 of them- I would have thought a unified NATO agreement to provide escort fighter cover and AWACs top cover would be the minimum for these missions- where were our “friends and allies”? Norwegian air force should have sortied at least 2 fighters to escort.

      • Yes, it’s more than doable.

        With such missiles as the Block 6 ASRAAM in particular even more so, but I can’t go into that too technically.

        The main problem would be the hesitancy from the aircraft design authority, i.e. Boeing, as they’d want the Moon on the stick along with a large sum of cash, so it can pass integration!

  10. So in international law, can one country sue another for defamation? I keep seeing quotes like this below that really make me wish I understood more about the law. To my naive eyes, this just makes Russian media and politics look like children pointing fingers, making up lies in the playground. Can charges not be brought up against their government and media outlets? Some if not most of their statements are clearly incorrect. A sense of projection to appear like the victim perhaps? To hide their own sense of shame/failure? So they can paint the West as evil and do what we want?

    “Moscow had also claimed the aircraft was forced out of Russian territory by the crew of the Russian fighter jet”

    I know it’s lies, you know it’s lies, the rest of the world knows it’s lies…. but to the Russian people… having the wool pulled over their eyes yet again. With enough propaganda, maybe the Russian people actually believe them… and harbouring even more hatred toward the West. Makes me sick. Completely irresponsible form of leadership. I just hope the Russian people are seeing through their leadership’s lies and actually rally for change.
    But to say that our aircraft are were in Russian territory? Come on man… that would be a massive political issue with huge ramifications. Completely false statements coming out of Russia again and again. If enough legal action was taken on each of these entities, would it stop them? Would they pay? would they retract their statements? Would they even care?! Probably not, but it annoys me.
    Sorry for the rant. Just makes my blood boil.
    M@

    • International law is made of a lots of interlocking treaties and you will find there is never one version of the truth as many nations will not agree with a definition or treaty or have not signed up to a treaty. A great example is the Antarctic treaty which sets the rules for the Antarctic, but only 12 nations are signatories to the treaty, China not being one of them….so what will stop China drilling and mining the Antarctic…well probably no one unless a stronger coalition than China wish to go to war with China to stop them or use sanctions and can get every other nation involved.

      in reality international law is very much “ what the mighty say it is” and “what the mighty are willing to enforce” this includes both economic and military might.

      Just look at the falklands, in reality there are so called legal arguments that both sides could drag up right back to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas which divide the world between Portugal and Spain… which is one of the actual building blocks of the Falklands is part of Argentinian….mad as it seems. But in reality the falklands will stay British as long as we have the ecconomic might to support the islanders as well as the military might to tell Argentinian to geopolitically speaking “fuck off”, it matter not what the UN council of whatever happens to say or what bizarre treaties are dug up.

  11. This is all a complete nonsense frankly. I have no idea why it’s been reported in the BBC and the Guardian as overflying Russian territory as if the RAF are sending aircraft over Moscow. If this is what constitutes journalism these days, we have a problem. I blame the BS woke publications and lazy, incompetent journalism that copy and pastes text from social media.

    • They wouldn’t be able to sell the story, if the aircraft was “patrolling as normal” along the internationally recognised airspace boundary.

  12. The past 6 months have proven that the vast majority of the Russian military are poorly trained and unprofessional. Not sure why for the past 30 years the government has been trying to convince us otherwise. Maybe to keep the massive defense budgets going….

    • I can tell you that the ineptness of so much of the Russian military machine has caused very many raised eyebrows in MoD. Unfortunately I am not party to what the information gatherers on the ground have discovered.

  13. We should buy the b21 raider from America and convert a couple for surveillance then we have no need to announce the flights

  14. Can you be more specific about the content of your article? After reading it, I still have some doubts. Hope you can help me.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here