Russian Planes Breach Japan’s Airspace for First Time Since 2015

(Bloomberg) -- Russian military aircraft breached Japan’s airspace for the first time in nearly four years, just as Asia’s second-largest economy prepares to host a summit of the Group of 20 wealthy nations next week.

Two breaches involving Tupolev Tu-95 bombers took place on Thursday morning -- one close to the Daito islands in Okinawa Prefecture and another near Hachijo-jima, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of Tokyo, Japan’s Ministry of Defense said. Each incident lasted two or three minutes, according to a statement on the ministry’s website.

While Russian warplanes fly around Japan’s coast fairly frequently, the last such violation of the country’s airspace was in September 2015, according to a public relations official at the ministry, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

Japan scrambled fighter jets to intercept approaching foreign aircraft 999 times in the year to March 2019, the second-highest total on record. Of that figure, 343 scrambles were against Russian planes and 638 against Chinese planes.

--With assistance from Sophie Jackman.

To contact the reporter on this story: Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo at ireynolds1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Chris Kay, Daniel Ten Kate

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