South Korea’s military said it dispatched fighter jets on Wednesday as six Russian and two Chinese warplanes entered its air defense zone without notice.
The Japanese military also said it scrambled jets in response to flights over the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, by Russian and Chinese aircraft.
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Seoul said Chinese H-6 bombers repeatedly moved in and out of the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ) near the southern and northern coasts on Wednesday. -eastern South Korea.
Hours later, they returned to the area from the East Sea, accompanied by Russian warplanes, including two Su-35 fighter jets and four TU-95 bombers, he added.
All fighter jets eventually left the area and none violated South Korean airspace, Seoul said.
An ADIZ is an area larger than a country’s airspace in which it attempts to control aircraft for safety reasons, but the concept is not defined in any international treaty.
“Our military deployed air force fighter jets even before Chinese and Russian planes entered the KADIZ to take tactical action in case of emergency,” the JCS said in a statement. .
Beijing and Moscow appear to have “engaged in a combined aerial exercise”, Seoul’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed “observers”.
The Japanese Joint Chiefs of Staff said two Chinese H-6 bombers “entered the Sea of Japan and then flew north” on Wednesday morning.
“At about the same time, what appears to be two Russian planes flew south over the Sea of Japan and then turned back,” he said, adding that he had dispatched jets in response.
The incident comes as Washington pushes China, North Korea’s most important ally, to use its influence to help rein in Pyongyang, which has waged a record campaign of missile launches this year.
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently told Kim Jong Un that he was ready to work with the North Korean leader for “world peace”.
Pyongyang at the beginning of the month fired an intercontinental ballistic missile in one of its strongest tests yet, declaring that it would respond to perceived US nuclear threats with its own nuclear weapons. According to South Korean and Japanese estimates, the North Korean missile flew about 3,600 to 3,790 miles at a maximum altitude of 620 miles.
At the end of October, American and South Korean officials confirmed to CBS News that Pyongyang is preparing to test an atomic weapon soon, in what would be its first nuclear test since 2017.
The United States has accused Beijing and Moscow of shielding Pyongyang from further sanctions.
Both countries in May vetoed a US-led effort toughen sanctions against North Korea in response to North Korean missile launches. The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13-2 and marked a first serious split between the five permanent members with veto power from the UN’s most powerful body over a sanctions resolution against North Korea.