
A Russian military plane was intercepted off the coast of Alaska on Sunday — the third in less than a week, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a news release.
Officials have stressed, however, that while the aircraft were detected in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) — a stretch of international airspace that requires aircraft to readily identify themselves for national security purposes, Moscow’s planes didn’t cross into American or Canadian airspace.
“This Russian activity in the Alaskan ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat,” NORAD said in a statement.
At least five NORAD aircraft were dispatched “to intercept and visually identify” Russia’s surveillance encroachments that took place Sunday, Thursday and Wednesday, according to NORAD’s news releases.
Moscow’s maneuvers came a week after President Trump’s historic summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage to try to broker a peace agreement in the country’s war against Ukraine.
Similar Russian efforts were flagged last fall, when aircraft entered the Alaskan ADIZ after the U.S. military deployed about 130 service members to a remote location in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
Sunday’s detection marked the seventh instance of Russian aircraft entering the ADIZ this year, based on NORAD reports. There were 26 such instances last year and 26 in 2023.
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