Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has announced that Russian long-range bombers will conduct flights along Russian borders, over the Arctic Ocean, western Atlantic, eastern Pacific, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said Russia has not previously flown actual bomber patrols over the Gulf of Mexico, including during the Cold War. Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers were making regular patrols across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans during Cold War times, reaching areas from which nuclear-tipped cruise missiles could be launched at the United States. But that stopped in the post-Soviet economic meltdown.
The bomber patrol flights have resumed under President Vladimir Putin’s tenure, and they have become even more frequent in recent weeks, with NATO reporting a spike in Russian military flights over the Black, Baltic and North seas as well as the Atlantic Ocean.
Shoigu said that Russia also plans to expand its worldwide military presence by seeking permission for navy ships to use ports in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for replenishing supplies and doing maintenance. He said the military was conducting talks with Algeria, Cyprus, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Seychelles, Vietnam and Singapore. Russia also is talking to some of those countries about allowing long-range bombers to use their air bases for refueling .
In September, the report said, Russian strategic bombers in the Labrador Sea off Canada practiced cruise missile strikes on the U.S. Earlier this year, in May, the report said, Russian military aircraft approached within 50 miles (80 kilometres) of the California coast, the closest such Russian military flight reported since the end of the Cold War.