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UK, France Scramble Jets to Monitor Russian Bombers Near Their Airspace


FILE - A British Royal Air Force Typhoon aircraft in flight during a mission over central Iraq, Sept. 21, 2016.
FILE - A British Royal Air Force Typhoon aircraft in flight during a mission over central Iraq, Sept. 21, 2016.

Britain said Thursday that it had scrambled an unspecified number of Typhoon aircraft to monitor two Russian Blackjack bombers that flew near British airspace.

The incident was the latest example of Russian jets flying near to Britain, often as a way of testing the response time of their British counterparts.

"We can confirm that quick reaction alert Typhoon aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby scrambled to monitor two Blackjack bombers while they were in the U.K. area of interest," a Royal Air Force spokesman said in a statement.

Separately, the French air force said two of its Mirage military aircraft escorted the two bombers down the French coast before handing over to Spanish military planes.

A French official said the incident was the fourth time Russian fighters had been intercepted on the French coast over the past two years, a period of tension between Russia and Western European countries related to the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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