CNN account of Russian violation of South Korean airspace

[soryang]

Warplanes from four countries face off in Asian confrontation

By Ben Westcott, Brad Lendon and Yoonjung Seo, CNN

Updated 1:59 PM ET, Tue July 23, 2019

Seoul (CNN)Warplanes from four countries faced off Tuesday in a chaotic and unprecedented confrontation above a small, disputed island off the coast of South Korea and Japan.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement claiming they had fired more than 300 warning shots at a Russian A-50 command and control military aircraft early Tuesday morning after it had twice violated the country's airspace, the first such incident between the countries.

Moscow furiously denied Seoul's account of the encounter, claiming that South Korean military jets had dangerously intercepted two of its bombers during a planned flight over neutral waters.

But in a statement Tuesday afternoon, Japan's Ministry of Defense backed up South Korea's claims, saying the A-50 had flown over the islands and that Tokyo had scrambled fighters to intercept.

In a further complication, both South Korea and Japan said that two Chinese H-6 bombers had joined the Russian military aircraft on sorties through the region as well.

This is more and a nice graphic at the link:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/23/asia/south-korea-russia-military-intl-hnk/index.html

I think it's worthwhile to read the whole thing.

The Russian action, in particular the territorial airspace violations over Dokto which elicited an unprecedented armed response from South Korean air defense aircraft, were obviously calculated to aggravate a long simmering dispute over the territory between Japan and Korea and drive a further wedge in their current relations. The Japanese claim to the islands is spurious having asserted control of the islands during the period of Japanese imperial military actions subjugating Korea during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They lost this control after August 1945.

Here is the pertinent quote from the CNN article which reveals Moscow's motive:

The Japanese government said that it had issued a strong protest against both the Russian and the South Korean governments for intruding on what they regard as their airspace.

The South Koreans said they had dismissed Japan's protests. Moscow has not responded to either country's concerns.

[soryang]

1. The Japanese intercepted the Russian-Chinese flight over the East China Sea

rather than in the vicinity of Dokto over the East Sea/Sea of Japan.

. (Source-JTBC News 7.24) Japanese MOD report shows flight path of Russian A-50 around Dokto (Takeshima) entering territorial airspace twice. Japanese fighter aircraft had intercepted the unprecedented joint Russian Chinese air operation over the East China Sea according to JTBC News.
.