Russian planes flying near Alaska drew a big response on Wednesday. NORAD says it scrambled a mix of US and Canadian jets after detecting two Russian TU-142s moving through the air defense identification zones off Alaska and Canada on Wednesday. The response package was sizable: two US F-35s, two F-22s, four KC-135 tankers, an E-3 AWACS, plus two Canadian CF-18s, and a CC-150 tanker, which Fox News reports tracked, identified, and intercepted the Russian aircraft.
The planes stayed in international airspace and never entered US or Canadian territory, and NORAD stressed the flights are not seen as a threat. A similar encounter took place last month, notes Newsweek, when NORAD intercepted five Russian military aircraft, including bombers and fighters, near the Bering Strait; those aircraft also remained in international airspace and were not labeled provocative. NORAD, based at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado, uses satellites, radar, and fighter jets to monitor aircraft entering the vast Air Defense Identification Zones that ring North America. Per NORAD, an ADIZ "begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security."