Two Russian jets 'breach' Japanese airspace, Tokyo scrambles warplanes

Via indiatimes.com

TOKYO: Two Russian fighter jets violated Japanese airspace on Thursday as Tokyo scrambled its own planes in response, the defence ministry said, reportedly the first such incident in five years. The Russian planes were detected off the coast of northernmost Hokkaido island for just over a minute, shortly after Japan's new prime minister said he wants to find a "mutually acceptable solution" to a decades-old territorial row between the countries. Japan's foreign ministry lodged a formal protest over the incursion by a pair of Russian Su-27 fighters at about 3pm local time (0600 GMT). "Today, around 3pm, military fighters belonging to Russian Federation breached our nation's airspace above territorial waters off Hokkaido's Rishiri island," the foreign ministry said. It was the first breach of Japanese airspace by Russia since February 2008, according to Japanese media reports Thursday. The incident came hours after hawkish Japanese premier Shinzo Abe — who swept to power in December with pledges to get tough on diplomacy — offered apparently conciliatory comments toward Moscow over the Russian-administered Southern Kurils, known as the Northern Territories in Japan. Read More