Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

according to Breaking News at gazeta.ru right now (

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), NATO aircraft flew around the Russian aircraft with General of the Army

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on board recently twice, over the Baltics (on his way to and from

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I presume)

EDIT from the related photo-gallery

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: reportedly a Flanker is shooing off an F-16

EDIT AGAIN:
now found the vid

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A NATO military plane on Wednesday approached the plane of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu above the Baltic Sea, Russian news agencies reported, the third such encounter in three days.

A NATO fighter jet tried to approach Shoigu's plane but a Russian escort plane intervened to defend it, Interfax news agency reported, citing journalists accompanying the minister.

The escort plane, a Sukhoi SU-27, demonstrated it was armed by rocking its wings, after which the NATO plane flew off, Interfax reported.

Russian state television aired defense ministry footage of the incident, reporting that it took place over neutral waters.

NATO and national air forces decided to monitor flights after last week tracking "an unusually large number of Russian military aircraft flying over the Baltic Sea," a NATO spokesman said in a statement sent to AFP.

NATO insisted the crew's actions were "routine" to identify the plane while "maintaining a safe distance at all times" and then break away.

Shoigu on Wednesday was flying to Kaliningrad, a highly militarized Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea, to take part in a meeting with defense officials there.

At the meeting, he warned that "the situation near Russia's western borders is tending to get worse," the ministry said on its website.

"This is tied with the upsurge of military activity of NATO countries in Eastern Europe," Shoigu added.

The meeting came after NATO held military exercises over the weekend in Poland on the Lithuanian border close to Kaliningrad.

NATO is deploying four international battalions

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and each of the former Soviet Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Moscow sees the NATO build-up in the region as demonstrating a desire to contain Russia.

On Wednesday, Sweden summoned Russia's ambassador after a Russian Sukhoi fighter jet flew unusually close to a Swedish reconnaissance plane above the Baltic Sea.

"The Russian behavior is unacceptable" and had increased the risk of a serious incident, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told the TT news agency.

That incident, in international airspace, happened on Monday, a Swedish army statement said.

Also on Monday, a Russian fighter conducted an "unsafe" intercept of a US reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea, the US military said Tuesday.

Russia's defense ministry said, however, that its fighter plane reacted after the American reconnaissance plane made a "provocative turn" towards it, while another US reconnaissance plane entered the same area 10 minutes later.

Russian fighter jets routinely approach and identify aircraft in the skies over the Baltic and Kaliningrad, but most of these actions stay within safe limits.

Both Washington and Stockholm said the latest incidents went beyond those limits.

The protests come at a time of

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, where they are backing different sides in the conflict.

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Jura said:

according to Breaking News at gazeta.ru right now (

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), NATO aircraft flew around the Russian aircraft with General of the Army

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on board ...

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Jura said:

by the way this "NK" means "surface-launched"; there's "ПЛ" ("PL", "submarine-launched") variant available:

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Jura said:

News Of This Hour at gazeta.ru right now (

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) says the Admiral Grigorovich, the Admiral Essen (Project 11356) plus the "Improved Kilo" Krasnodar lobbed Kalibrs, six in total out of these three vessels, from Eastern Med into Syria; they also say the Krasnodar launched when submerged so let's wait and see if a fresh picture like this: Oct 24, 2015
will become available

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Two Russian Navy Project 11356 frigates and a Kilo-class submarine have fired six Kalibr cruise missiles at Islamic State positions in Syria, Russian media reported the ministry of defense as saying.

The ministry said the strikes hit IS command and control centers in Hama, Syria, adding that it was followed by airstrikes.

The Kalibr missiles were fired from two new Russian frigates, Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Essen, which joined the Russian Navy in March 2016 and June 2016, respectively.

Admiral Grigorovich deployed to the Mediterranean in February this year with the Essen following suit in May.

The submarine that took part in the strike was the Project 636.6 diesel-electric submarine Krasnodar which, together with Admiral Essen, already participated in a similar strike on May 31. Four Kalibr missiles were launched in that attack.

Bellow is a Russian Ministry of Defence video of the June 23 attack.

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The next addition to Russia’s roster of fighter jets that bridge fourth- and fifth-generation technology may join units as soon as 2019, officials with the MiG Corporation told Military.com here at the Paris Air Show.

The MiG-35, designed to replace MiG-29s rounding out their fourth decade in service, was absent from Paris but will be featured at the MAKS international airshow near Moscow in July as engineers finalize testing on the aircraft, said Anastasia Kravchenko, public relations director for MiG. Still to be determined is whether the fighter will be featured in a static display or aerial demo, she said.

MiG was already courting customers for the aircraft at the show, and Kravchenko said while she couldn’t name many of the countries, the company has received interest from south and southeast Asia, Latin America, and near neighbors to Russia such as Kazakhstan.

The MiG-35 has been in development for well over a decade, with the first reported demonstration flight at the Aero India Air Show in Bangalore in 2007.

“If we’re talking about fifth-generation technologies, we can safely say that we have some of them integrated and not in tests, but in use by this jet,” said Kravchenko, speaking to Military.com through a translator.

Some of those technologies include stealth capabilities, extreme maneuverability, and increased power: 12 percent more than previous models, she said.

While early reports suggested the aircraft could feature thrust-vectoring engines, a feature inherent in the

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and Russia’s SU-35, Kravchenko said that feature had been tested but would be offered only as an available option.

“If we talk about philosophy of the project, we consider this to be the plane that is built for today’s combat,” she said. “Since our planes including MiG-29s have been in numerous conflicts, we took all this experience and created what we call a soldier of today.”

Unlike many advanced fighters, the MiG-35 will also be extremely rugged, designed to withstand heavy anti-aircraft fire and operate in austere conditions, company officials said.

“It can take off from a very short lane, take off and land on unprepared airfields, and can be stored without a hangar for a period of a few months,” Kravchenko said. “And it’s important and we consider this to be somewhat of a record, if needed, the engines of the MiG-35 could be swapped in the conditions of active operations within the framework of 58 minutes.”

Flight testing is slated to wrap up late this year, or early next, and production is expected to start soon after and last a little more than a year.

But it’s possible that by the time the aircraft is delivered to units, another MiG project will have stolen the spotlight.

It’s rumored MiG is working on a fifth-generation light fighter. Sukhoi, Russia’s manufacturer of heavy fighter jets, has been working on its own fifth-gen offering, PAK FA, since before 2010, with the introduction of the aircraft reportedly slated for 2019. But if the rumors are true, the future project would be a first for MiG.

“We can say that we are working on a prospective project. But we cannot give out technical information or timeframes,” Kravchenko said. “And we can’t split it into generations as well.”

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