“Oh, there you have the Russians again”: Why Russian bombers regularly visit our airspace

Two Russian bombers approaching the Netherlands were intercepted yesterday by Belgian and British warplanes. The Russians claim to have complied with international rules. Not true, experts say. The Russians know it well.

The Tobolev TU-142 Pier F bombers, also used as reconnaissance aircraft, were intercepted as they approached Dutch airspace over the North Sea on Monday morning. Russia’s Northern Naval Press Service issued a statement to the Dass News Agency: “The flight lasted about 11 hours and was conducted in strict accordance with international rules for use of airspace.”

No transponder? Russians

But not all of those rules were followed. According to international agreements, the aircraft must have a transponder: a device that delivers a unique code that is previously agreed upon. Air traffic control can use that signal to identify an aircraft.

Joris Melkert, an aviation expert at TU Delft, says the Russians never actually switched off that transponder. “It’s very standard. If a military plane is found without a transponder, they know: Oh, there you have to have Russians again.”

Cat and mouse game

How to find planes? “Normal radar is still picking up devices, which is why they were spotted,” Melkert explains. According to him, the Russians push the boundaries with these kinds of actions: “This is really a kind of childish game of cat and mouse.”

Peter Wijinga, a security expert at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies, says they want to achieve two things with these types of aircraft. First, show that they exist. “If the Russians, for example, have problems with maintenance, you notice that these types of planes are down or coming to a complete stop.”

We are in error

In addition, they want to know how quickly they will respond to such a flight. “They all have wiretapping tools,” Wijinga says. In doing so, they receive information about our product status. From the speed at which British and Belgian warplanes responded it turned out to be OK yesterday.

The bombers did not enter Dutch airspace. They stayed at least 200 miles, about 370 kilometers north of Texas. They came to the area in charge of NATO, which is why the British and the Belgians went for it.

Service replaced with Belgians

Why don’t we go ourselves? “We have a ‘quick-reaction-alert’ team, in which the Netherlands and Belgium take Penelox’s air defense turns. This time it was the Belgians’ turn,” said Joris Melkert. As a plane approaches the airspace, the jet fighters on duty hang near the spotted aircraft.

“The hand gestures then make it clear to the pilots that they have to leave. If we already knew the Russian radio frequency, they would not have responded anyway.” Those hand gestures are internationally recognized. Melkert laughs when he jokingly asks if the hand gesture for ‘get out of this air’ is the raised middle finger. “I don’t know! It doesn’t look like this.”

No side effects

These types of Russian planes are not limited to our area. They are also trying to figure out how far they can go near the United States. “They hand Pinprix,” Melkert says.

The Russians never enter someone else’s airspace, but quickly divert before they get there. They do not talk about provocations, says Peter Wijinga: “Conflicts with domestic aviation, for example, only when dangerous situations arise.”