Japan Uses Flares to Warn Russian Plane in Airspace
Japan said its warplanes used flares to warn a Russian reconnaissance aircraft to leave northern Japanese airspace on September 23.
Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara told reporters that the Russian Il-38 plane entered Japan's airspace above Rebun Island, just off the coast of the country's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, for up to a minute in three instances, during its five-hour flight in the area.
It came a day after a joint fleet of Chinese and Russian warships sailed around Japan's northern coast. Kihara said the airspace violation could be related to a joint military exercise that Russia and China announced earlier this month.
Japan scrambled a number of F-15 and F-35 fighter jets, which used flares for the first time after the Russian aircraft apparently ignored their warnings, Kihara said.
"The airspace violation was extremely regrettable," Kihara said. He said Japan "strongly protested" to Russia through diplomatic channels.
"We will carry out our warning and surveillance operations as we pay close attention to their military activities," he said.
Kihara said the use of flares was an acceptable response to the airspace violation and he said the country will respond in this way again "without hesitation."
Japanese defense officials are highly concerned about growing military cooperation between China and Russia, and China's increasingly assertive activity around Japanese waters and airspace.
It led Tokyo to significantly reinforce defenses of southwestern Japan, including remote islands that are considered key to Japan's defense strategy in the region.
Earlier in September, Russian military aircraft flew around southern Japanese airspace. A Chinese Y-9 reconnaissance aircraft briefly violated Japan's southern airspace in late August.
According to Japan's military, it scrambled jets nearly 670 times between April 2023 and March 2024, about 70% of the time against Chinese military aircraft, though that did not include airspace violations.
Japan and Russia are in a territorial dispute over a group of Russian-held islands, which the former Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of World War II. This dispute has prevented the two countries from signing a peace agreement formally ending their war hostilities.
