The actions of the US Air Force pose a threat to civil aviation. This was announced on December 5 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.
"The actions of the US Air Force have created a threat to civil aviation. And if a catastrophe has now been prevented in the airspace over the open waters of the Black Sea, this does not mean that the United States and NATO can continue to risk people's lives with impunity," she wrote in Telegram .
The diplomat stressed that the increased intensity of flights of NATO aircraft near the borders of the Russian Federation, including over the Black Sea, increases the risks of dangerous incidents against civilian aircraft.
On October 3, a civilian plane flying from Tel Aviv to Moscow was forced to change course over the Black Sea to avoid a dangerous approach with a foreign reconnaissance aircraft. It was noted that the reconnaissance aircraft randomly crossed the established routes of civil aviation and approached the passenger Airbus.
The vertical distance between the planes was less than 20 m. The dispatchers gave the command to the civilian aircraft to descend by 500 m and take a safer echelon. The intruder aircraft did not respond to requests from the ground.
As military expert Viktor Litovkin noted, the US Air Force behaves brazenly and unpredictably and crosses the routes along which passenger planes fly, which can lead to tragedy. According to him, the confrontation of reconnaissance planes and bomber planes can provoke a collision and an air battle.
On the same day in December, Russian airspace controls over the neutral waters of the Black Sea detected air targets approaching the border of the Russian Federation. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Su-27 and Su-30 fighters were lifted into the air to identify them and prevent violations of the border of the Russian Federation.
The crews of Russian fighter jets identified air targets as the RC-135 strategic reconnaissance aircraft of the US Air Force and the CL-600 Artemis reconnaissance and targeting aircraft of the US Ground Forces and escorted them over the Black Sea.
Earlier, on November 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was concerned about military exercises, including unplanned ones, at its borders. The Russian leader noted that bombers were flying 20 km from the border of the Russian Federation, carrying high-precision weapons, and possibly nuclear weapons.
