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RAF fighter jets intercept Russian bombers
off coast of Scotland

Ministry of Defence plays down incident in which Typhoons scramble
to head off two Tu-95s in international airspace

• Ewen MacAskill and agencies
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 23 April 2014 13.49 EDT

An RAF Typhoon jet. Two of the fighters were scrambled from RAF Leuchars on Wednesday afternoon.
Photograph: Sgt Ralph Merry/Ministry of Defence/EPA

RAF fighter jets were scrambled on Wednesday afternoon to head off two Russian bombers heading for British airspace.

The Typhoons, based at Leuchars in Fife, intercepted the two Tupolev Tu-95s off the north coast of Scotland.

The incident is not regarded as being related to the Ukraine crisis but a relatively routine one. Russian military planes test British responses every few months.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the planes could not be identified and so the Typhoons were launched.

"The aircraft were subsequently identified as Russian military aircraft. The Russian military aircraft remained in international airspace at all times as they are perfectly entitled to do so. Russian military flights have never entered UK sovereign airspace without authorisation," he said.

The opeartion came after the MoD sanctioned a naval vessel to intercept a Russian ship as it came close to UK waters last week.

A defence spokesman confirmed on Wednesday night that as part of separate and routine activity, HMS Dragon, the Royal Navy's fleet-ready escort, sailed from Portsmouth on Good Friday to meet up with a Russian ship, the Vice Admiral Kulakov, which is transiting past the UK.

The spokesman said: "In what is a well established and standard response, the powerful Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer met its Russian counterpart and is now keeping an eye on its transit south."