Russian Planes Are Flying Thousands of Miles to Track NATO Submarines

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By David Axe***, The National Interest***

A pair of Russian navy Tu-142 patrol planes flew one of the longest-ever flights in international air space in decades on and around March 11, 2020.

The powerful, swept-wing planes with their four turboprop engines flew from Kipelovo-Fedotovo airbase near Vologda in northern Russia, skirted the Arctic Circle as they headed west around Norway and the United Kingdom then south to the waters off Spain — and then flew back.

NATO fighters rose to intercept the 174-feet-long Tupolevs, but at no point did the planes, which are based on the Tu-95 bomber, stray into any country’s national air space.

The impressive flight was just the latest in a surge of sorties by the small fleet of around two dozen Tu-142s, which with their nearly 8,000-mile endurance are among the farther-flyest military aircraft in the world.

The Tu-142 and other Russian long-range warplanes have flown several epic missions in the spring of 2020, in part in order to keep tabs on NATO submarines conducting exercises in European and Arctic waters.