Russian Fighter Jets Buzz USS Donald Cook

Unarmed Russian fighter jets buzzed the USS Donald Cook recently while at the Baltic Sea. Concerns about the incident were already communicated by the US Embassy in Moscow to the Russian government, according to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.

Earnest said the two countries will find a suitable resolution due to the incident using “well-established” military connections. The USS Donald Cook reportedly encountered a number of aggressive flight maneuvers from Russian fighter jets, which flew close to the ship, the European Command revealed in a statement. The statement added that they were concerned about the unprofessional and unsafe flight maneuvers by the Russian aircraft.

A US official said at one point one Russian fighter jet flew within thirty feet of the ship superstructure of the USS Donald Cook. Initial reports revealed that two other encounters happened on Tuesday evening in international waters. A third incident happened on Sunday, but was at an acceptable distance.

A video of the incident was posted by the US Navy on YouTube. A Polish helicopter was on board the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer for routine training. It led to speculations that the Russians wanted to send a message to Poland.

The maneuver by the Russian aircraft was described as a “strafing run” without using any weapons by a US official. The aircraft flew over the deck in the same way an aircraft would fly in for an attack. The budget requested by the Pentagon for the upcoming fiscal year is at $582.7 billion. A significant amount will be used for the acquisition of new hardware, including the F-35 fighter jets. Around $10.1 billion will be used for three variants of the F-35. Forty-three F-35As will go to the Air Force, sixteen F-35Bs are allotted for the Marine Corps while four F35Cs will go to the US Navy.

Russian Fighter Jets Buzz USS Donald Cook - image credit: cnn.com

Another US defense official revealed that a Russian SU-24 and a helicopter conducted the overflights, which interrupted flight operations of the Polish helicopter since one of the aircraft flew too close to the ship. An intelligence-gathering ship from Russia has been closely shadowing the USS Donald Cook prior to the overflights. The official said the crew of the US ship radioed the crew of the Russian ship that they were conducting routine operations.

While there are a number of encounters between US and Russian ships and aircraft, these were no concerns raised in these previous incidents. However, close encounters between the two sides have seen an increase recently. Last October, two Russian Tu-142 aircraft were intercepted by US Navy jets since they flew close to the USS Ronald Reagan while it was sailing in the Pacific Ocean.

In another incident in June, a Russian Su-24 came to within 500 meters of a US guided missile destroyer while it was in the Black Sea close to Crimea.

The maneuvers by Russian jets come as tensions in the eastern flank of NATO have been increasing. The Department of Defense announced in February that it will put in $3.4 billion in the European Reassurance Initiative to dissuade aggression by Russian against the allies of NATO after Russia intervened in Ukraine in 2014.

Additional military assets were deployed by the US in Europe recent week as part of its Operation Atlantic Resolve.F-15s were deployed in Iceland by the US Air Force earlier this month along with F-22s in the United Kingdom. In February, the United States announced the deployment of six F-15s into Finland for training exercises as well as the pre-positioning of military assets in Norway.

Posted by James Fried on Friday April 15 2016, 11:07 AM EDT. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Uncategorized. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0