NORAD intercepts Russian and Chinese aircraft operating together near Alaska

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) tracked and intercepted a combination of Chinese and Russian aircraft operating near Alaska on Wednesday.

U.S. and Canadian aircraft intercepted the two Russian TU-95 and two Chinese H-6 military aircraft operating in international airspace, NORAD said in a statement. The foreign aircraft did not enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace.

NORAD also noted that it did not view the aircraft “as a threat,” though they will continue to monitor foreign activity near North America. It’s not uncommon for Russian aircraft to fly into Alaska‘s Air Defense Identification Zone (AZID), which is where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires aircraft to readily identify itself in the interest of national security.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters that it’s the first time China and Russia have conducted a mission like this.

“This was not a surprise to us,” he said. “We closely monitored these aircraft, tracked the aircraft, intercepted the aircraft, which demonstrates that our forces are at the ready all the time, and we have we have very good surveillance capabilities.”

The Russian Ministry of Defense said on Telegram it and the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military, carried out an air patrol over the Chukchi Sea, Bering Sea waters, and the northern part of the Pacific Ocean.

The aircraft involved in the exercise, which lasted more than five hours, obeyed international law and did not violate the airspace of any foreign country, according to the ministry.

In March, the head of U.S. Northern Command, Gen. Gregory Guillot, warned that China has a “willingness and a desire” to “act up there.”

“We have seen them in the maritime,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time. “We have seen them under the cloud of a technical or scientific research, but we think it is certainly multi-mission, to include military. And then I expect to see air activity in the Alaska part of the Arctic as soon as this year, potentially. It is a very big concern of mine.”