South Korea says its jets fired 360 warning shots after a Russian military aircraft entered its airspace for the first time since the end of the Korean War.
The tension surged as the Russian warplanes were accompanied by two Chinese bombers into South Korea’s air defense identification zone. Beijing’s aircraft didn’t violate South Korean air space, according to Seoul officials, but the joint operation highlights the growing cooperation between Russia and China.
“It is also a message to South Korea, a U.S. ally, that we are here, so don’t get too close to the U.S., especially amid the China-U.S. trade war,” Ni Lexiong, a military analyst based on China, suggested.
Seoul officials claimed that two Russian Tu-95 bombers and an A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft entered its country’s air defense identification zone Tuesday, with the A-50, a Soviet-era reconnaissance aircraft, intruding into South Korean airspace on its east coast.
An unspecified number of South Korean F-16s were scrambled and fired 10 flares and 80 warning shots from machine guns, according to officials. The A-50 then reportedly left the airspace before returning just three minutes later, prompting the South Korean military to 10 additional flares and 280 rounds of ammunition.
“This move is plausibly also designed to mirror USAF’s continuous bomber presence missions staged from Guam,” Collin Koh, a research fellow at a Singapore-based S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, tweeted. “That this inaugural joint air patrol led to the first documented [South Korean Air Force] firing of warning shots against Russian planes over Dokdo means future trouble may be brewing.”
The incident also sparked a dispute with Japan, which has a tense relationship with South Korea even though both countries are important U.S. allies in the region. South Korea shouldn’t have responded to the Russian and Chinese operations near Dokdo, officials in Tokyo complained, because Japan claims sovereignty over that territory.
“It is Japan that should take action against the Russian plane that entered its airspace,” Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said. “It is incompatible with Japan’s stance that South Korea takes steps on that.”
South Korea dismissed that rebuke. Russia, meanwhile, denied South Korea’s allegations and even claimed that “no warning shots were fired by South Korea’s fighter jets.” The joint patrol with China, Moscow added, is aimed at “strengthening global stability.”
“The flights were performed as part of implementing the provisions of the military cooperation plan for 2019 and were not directed against third countries,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. “If the Russian pilots felt a security threat, the response would follow quickly.”
South Korea summoned Russia’s acting ambassador and defense attaché after the incident. South Korean officials also summoned a Chinese ambassador for a rebuke.
“We are taking the incident very seriously,” South Korean presidential national security adviser Chung Eui-yong told a top Russian security official. “If such an act is repeated, [South Korea] will take a far stronger measure.”
The missile killed all 269 on board. A retired colonel from China’s People Liberation Army predicted that the countries would continue to patrol in the area without incident, because air defense identification zones are not the equivalent of sovereign air space.
The prospect of joint military operations by Russia and China will keep the United States and its allies on the watch, analysts said.
“Now these patrols may take place over ECS and Sea of Japan,” Koh added. “Will be interesting to predict future such joint air patrols to take place further out to the Western Pacific Ocean open waters, perhaps closer to Guam.”
In 1983, a Soviet Union fighter jet fired an air-to-air missile at a South Korean passenger plane after it lapsed into Soviet airspace.
