Russian Bomber Patrols To Reach Gulf Of Mexico

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.”