War in Ukraine: Nuclear-capable Russian Tu-95 bombers flew over northern UK for “more than 7 hours”

Tu-95MS strategic bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, had to be escorted by NATO fighter planes to get them out of the area.

It was just a “routine flight” according to Moscow. Russian strategic bombers flew over the north of the United Kingdom in the Norwegian Sea to the point of being escorted by NATO fighter jets, according to statements from the Russian Defense Ministry.

Neither the date of these Tu-95MS flights, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, nor the countries which deployed their aviation to monitor them have been specified. It is also known that Russian Su-33 fighters were deployed alongside the bombers.

“Show that Russia is capable of striking”

“Tu-95MS long-range bombers of the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out a scheduled flight in the airspace over the international waters of the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea. The duration of the flight was more than seven hours,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in comments reported by the Russian news agency TASS.

Moscow, which refers to “a routine flight”, affirmed that this type of operation was recurrent in the neutral waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as the Baltic and Black seas, and that each flight was carried out “in strict compliance with international rules”.

“Russia talks about “ routine flight » but on the contrary it is an eloquent test of NATO’s defenses and a significant threat for the United Kingdom, deciphers military analyst Louis Duclos on X (ex-Twitter). Sending strategic bombers close to British airspace shows that Russia is capable of striking Great Britain. »

The Tu-95 is one of Moscow’s major instruments in its massive bombing campaign in Ukraine. It is one of the large bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Codenamed “Bear” for NATO, the Tu-95 is an old plane thought of during the Soviet era as a nuclear threat to the United States with a range of 14,000 km, or a round trip to the American continent.