Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) has denied Russian claims that the RAF RC-135W surveillance aircraft had violated its border over the Barents Sea. Moscow said it had scrambled a Russian MIG-31 to intercept the plane, which it claimed had crossed into its airspace near the remote Arctic cape of Svyatoi Nos. The Russian Defense Ministry said Britain had sent a notification about a planned flight of an RC-135 reconnaissance plane along a route that partly passes over Russian territory. “We regard this action as a deliberate provocation,” the ministry said, adding that the Russian air force “had the task of preventing the violation of Russia’s borders.” “All possible consequences of this deliberate provocation will be borne entirely by the British side,” the ministry said in a statement, without specifying when or where the British flight was planned. However, the UK denied that its plane had crossed into Russian airspace during what it said was a routine operation. The Foreign Office accused the Russian jet of flying dangerously close to the RAF aircraft. A spokesman said: “A Russian MIG-31 aircraft made an unsafe close pass of an RAF RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft while conducting a routine operation in international airspace over the Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea on Monday 15 August. “The UK aircraft was in contact with Russian air traffic control and its crew was operating in a safe and professional manner.” The charges came amid tensions between Russia and the West over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
