South Korea fires 360 warning shots after Russian, Chinese military planes enter airspace
- The three Russian planes earlier entered the South Korean air defence identification zone with two Chinese military planes
- Moscow denied it had violated South Korean airspace, and China’s foreign ministry said all countries have freedom of movement in Seoul’s air space identification zone
A ministry official, requesting anonymity due to department rules, said the three Russian planes entered the South Korean air defence identification zone with two Chinese military planes. But it wasn’t immediately known whether the two countries deliberately did so, according to the official.
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Moscow later denied its aircraft had violated South Korean airspace, saying its jets had carried out planned drills over international waters.
“It was not the first time that South Korean pilots tried to unsuccessfully interfere with the flights of the Russian aviation forces above the neutral waters of the Sea of Japan,” the defence ministry said in a statement.
It also denied that South Korean planes fired warning shots.
China’s foreign ministry said South Korea’s air space identification zone is not a territorial airspace and all countries enjoy freedom of movement there.
The airspace was above a group of South Korean-held islets roughly halfway between South Korea and Japan that has been a source of territorial disputes between them. Russia isn’t a party in those disputes.
The ministry official from Seoul said South Korean fighter jets, including F-16s – scrambled to the area to fire 10 flares and 80 rounds from machine guns as warning shots,
The Russian plane left the area but it returned and violated the South Korean airspace again later Tuesday, the ministry official said. He said the South Korean fighter jets fired warning shots again. Each time, the Russian plane didn’t return fire, the official said.
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The presidential Blue House on Tuesday lodged an official protest with Russia with Chung Eui-yong, President Moon Jae-in’s top national security official delivering the message to his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.
According to Blue House spokeswoman Ko Min-jung, Chung told Patrushev: “We are taking the incident very seriously. If such an act is repeated, [South Korea] will take far stronger measures.”
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South Korea’s Foreign Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff registered their official protests with Beijing when they summoned China’s ambassador and defence attache respectively.
The former Soviet Union supported North Korea and provided the country with weapons during the 1950-53 Korean War, which killed millions. In 1983, a Soviet air force fighter jet fired an air-to-air missile at a South Korean passenger plane that strayed into Soviet territory, killing all 269 people on board.
Relations between Seoul and Moscow gradually improved, and they established diplomatic ties in 1990, a year before the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Additional reporting by Park Chan-kyong, Reuters and Agence France-Presse
