South Korea says it fired warning shots at intruding Russian military plane, but Russia denies it

[Cole_phelps]

Seoul, South Korea -- South Korean air force jets fired 360 rounds of warning shots after a Russian military plane briefly violated South Korea's airspace twice on Tuesday, Seoul officials said, in the first such incident between the countries. Russia however denied violating South Korea's airspace and accused the South Korean planes of "non-professional" maneuvres that put its aircraft at risk.
Three Russian military planes -- two Tu-95 bombers and one A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft -- initially entered South Korea's air defense identification zone off its east coast before the A-50 intruded into South Korean airspace, according to the South's Defense Ministry.

South Korean fighter jets scrambled to the area, including F-16s, and fired 10 flares and 80 rounds from machine guns as warning shots, a ministry official said, requesting anonymity due to department rules.

 

[Cole_phelps]

Warplanes from four countries face off in Asian confrontation


Seoul (CNN)Warplanes from four countries faced off Tuesday in a chaotic and unprecedented confrontation above a small, disputed island off the coast of South Korea and Japan.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement claiming they had fired more than 300 warning shots at a Russian A-50 command and control military aircraft early Tuesday morning after it had twice violated the country's airspace, the first such incident between the countries.
Moscow furiously denied Seoul's account of the encounter, claiming that South Korean military jets had dangerously intercepted two of its bombers during a planned flight over neutral waters.
But in a statement Tuesday afternoon, Japan's Ministry of Defense backed up South Korea's claims, saying the A-50 had flown over the islands and that Tokyo had scrambled fighters to intercept.
In a further complication, both South Korea and Japan said that two Chinese H-6 bombers had joined the Russian military aircraft on sorties through the region as well.

 

[BMD]

S. Korea's claim on warning shot firings disputed by Russia

S. Korea's claim on warning shot firings disputed by Russia

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean air force jets fired 360 rounds of warning shots Tuesday after a Russian military plane twice violated South Korea's airspace off the country's east coast, Seoul officials said in an announcement that was quickly disputed by Russia.

South Korea said three Russian military planes — two Tu-95 bombers and one A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft — entered the South's air defense identification zone off its east coast before the A-50 intruded in South Korean airspace. Russia said later that two of its Tu-95MS bombers were on a routine flight over neutral waters and didn't enter South Korean territory.

According to South Korean government accounts, an unspecified number of South Korean fighter jets, including F-16s, scrambled to the area and fired 10 flares and 80 rounds from machine guns as warning shots.

Seoul defense officials said the Russian reconnaissance aircraft left the area three minutes later but later returned and violated South Korean airspace again for four minutes. The officials said the South Korean fighter jets then fired 10 flares and 280 rounds from machine guns as warning shots.

South Korea said it was the first time a foreign military plane had violated South Korean airspace since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry and the Joint Chiefs of Staff summoned Russia's acting ambassador and its defense attache to protest.

Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement that its planes did not enter South Korean airspace. It also said South Korean fighter jets didn't fire any warning shots, though it said they flew near the Russian planes in what it called "unprofessional maneuvers" and posed a threat.

"If the Russian pilots felt there was a security threat, they would have responded," the statement said.

South Korea's presidential national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, told top Russian security official Nikolai Patrushev that South Korea views Russia's airspace violation "very seriously" and will take "much stronger" measures if a similar incident occurs, according to South Korea's presidential office.

The former Soviet Union supported North Korea and provided the country with weapons during the Korean War, which killed millions. In 1983, a Soviet air force fighter jet fired an air-to-air missile at a South Korean passenger plane that strayed into Soviet territory, killing all 269 people on board. Relations between Seoul and Moscow gradually improved, and they established diplomatic ties in 1990, a year before the breakup of the Soviet Union.

 

[BMD]

World War III? How Russia, China, Japan and South Korea Nearly Started a War

July 27, 2019 Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Tags: RussiaChinaJapanSouth KoreaAerial Threats

World War III? How Russia, China, Japan and South Korea Nearly Started a War
Showdown over the Sea of Japan?

by Sebastien Roblin

The morning dawned peacefully enough on July 22 as Chinese and Russian warplanes soared towards a rendezvous point over the Sea of Japan for what was to be their first-ever joint patrol.

As Russia’s defense ministry put it, this was intended to deepen “Russian-Chinese relations within our all-encompassing partnership, of further increasing cooperation between our armed forces, and of perfecting their capabilities to carry out joint actions, and of strengthening global strategic security.”

Representing the PLA Air Force were two H-6K jet bombers which threaded their away through the international airspace of the Korean Strait to meet over the Eastern Sea with two modernized Russian Tu-95MS “Bear” bombers, each with four turboprop engines with noisy contra-rotating propellers.


Accompanying the Bears was a Russian A-50 Mainstay airborne early warning plane with a huge rotating radar dish mounted on a dorsal pylon to helped coordinate the multinational elements.

These aircraft repeatedly entered and exited South Korea’s air-defense identification zone (ADIZ), so the South Korean air force dispatched eighteen domestically-built F-15K Slam Eagle and KF-16 jet fighters to intercept them.

Japan’s Air Self Defense Force also scrambled jet fighters which photographed the Russian A-50 plane.

Air defense identification zones often extend into international airspace (beyond twelve nautical miles from a country’s borders/shoreline) and their sanctity is not formally recognized under international law. As China, Japan and South Korea have overlapping ADIZs over the East China Sea, their “violation” is not intrinsically a grave matter. Russian and Chinese aircraft had entered Korea’s ADIZ more than three dozen times in the last seven months according to Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

But things changed when the A-50 radar plane veered sharply westward and overflew Korean airspace for three minutes over Dokdo islets 9:09 AM.

The islets are also claimed by Japan, which calls them the Takeshima islands. Washington designates them the “Liancourt Rocks” to avoid taking sides.



Earlier in December 2018, a Korean destroyer locked its fire-control radar onto a Japanese P-1 maritime patrol plane near the islands, resulting in a war of words between Seoul and Tokyo which has escalated into a deepening political rift and economic sanctions. Bear in mind the islets have a collective surface area of only forty-six acres and are populated by only fifty residents, though they do lie astride valuable fishing grounds and possible natural gas reserves.

As the A-50 cruised over the islets of contention, the South Korean jets shot eighty shells from their 20-millimeter cannons, and launched ten flares—aerial decoys ordinarily intended to divert heat-seeking missiles—to warn the unarmed radar plane to change course.



According to a Korean map, the A-50 eventually banked 90 degrees onto a southeastward trajectory—and then circled tightly around to reenter the airspace over the islets a second time on a north-eastern trajectory at 9:33 a.m. During the second, four-minute overflight, the Korean jet fighters fired 280-more cannon rounds and ten more flares.

Aerial encounters between bombers and patrol planes and jet fighters are common, though sometimes tense occurrences as fighter pilots sometimes seek to intimidate the crews of bombers or spy planes with close, dangerous flybys. However, it’s rare today for probing bombers or spy planes to actually violate another country’s airspace—and even rarer for fighters to open fire during an intercept, even if only in warning.

South Korea’s foreign ministry complained to Moscow. Not to be outdone, Tokyo then issued formal complaints to both Russia and South Korea.

Unfortunately, Korea and Russia’s own tragic history indicates that warning shots can be difficult to detect. In 1983, Korean Air Flight 007 fell wildly off course due to a combination of technical and pilot error, and found itself on a course which repeatedly violated Soviet airspace. A Soviet Su-15 interceptor finally caught up with the 747 airliner and fired two-hundred 23-millimeter cannon shells parallel to it—before the pilot acceded to orders to shoot down the Jumbo Jet with a missile, killing all 269 aboard. A Blackbox later recovered by the Soviet Union revealed the airliner’s crew were oblivious to the cannon shells sailing past them.

The July 2019 incident is also peculiar given that Seoul and Moscow have gotten along fairly well in the post-Cold War era. For example, Korea’s Ai-Missile Defense system is based in part on Russian missile technology. In 2018, Moon Jae-in became the first South Korean president to pay a state visit to Russia, and the countries’ air forces established a hotline intended to alleviate precisely such incidents as occurred this July.

Later that day, a South Korean spokesman reported that a Russian military attaché“expressed deep regret” for the incident, which he blamed on a technical glitch. But the following day, however, Russia insisted it had not made an “official apology,” whileaccusing two Korean KF-16 pilots of “hooliganism” performed “illegal and dangerous” maneuvers near its Tu-95 bombers. The A-50 which was reportedly shot at did not figure in the Russian statement.

On July 25, South Korean and Russian officials met in Seoul and agreed to exchange radar images and voice recordings to better ascertain what transpired on July 23.

What explains the alleged Russian airspace violation?

One possibility is a navigational error. However, it also seems distinctly possible the overflight was deliberately calculated to tweak South Korea and Japan by bringing the disputed islands back into the news.

David Cenicotti at The Aviationist also points out the A-50 is a capable radar- and electromagnetic surveillance platform, and that Russia may have been using it to study the reaction time and sensor signature of Japanese and South Korean jets.

The joint Russian-Chinese bomber patrol is also significant as a symbolic statement of shared purpose between Moscow and Beijing, though the two Asian powers remain far from being in a true military alliance. In a high-intensity conflict, H-6s and Tu-95s would be used to attempt to sink enemy warships and aircraft carriers. If such patrols become routine, that could eventually reshape the security environment in the western Pacific.

Recently, Chinese economic sanctions persuaded South Korea to promise not to deepen ties with the United States or Japan—particularly given Washington’s recent disinterest in maintaining its alliances. It remains to be seen whether incidents such as these may reverse that trend, or simply contribute to the deepening rift between South Korea and Japan.