Russian Warplanes Buzz U.S. Navy Destroyer, Polish Helicopter

[jpak]

Source: Wall Street Journal

Russian military warplanes flew close to a U.S. Navy destroyer and Polish military helicopter multiple times over two days this week, according to U.S. officials, a sign of potentially rising tensions despite Moscow’s recent agreement to hold new talks with the Western alliance.

U.S. officials said the Russian military passes, by unarmed Su-24 warplanes and a military helicopter, were unsafe, potentially provocative, and could have caused an accident.

One pass occurred as a Polish military helicopter was about to take off from the deck of the U.S.S. Donald Cook, according to a U.S. official briefed on the incident. The pass-by disrupted the operation, forcing the Cook to hold the helicopter on its deck.

The Cook, a ballistic missile defense destroyer, was patrolling and conducing helicopter exercises with Poland and other U.S. partners in the southwestern Baltic Sea, after a port visit in Poland on Sunday.

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Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-warplanes-fly-close-to-u-s-navy-destroyer-polish-helicopter-1460549626

[Orrex]

1. It was nice of them to polish the helicopter.

Who doesn't like to have their helicopter polished?



Oh, wait.

[PersonNumber503602]

2. I laughed.

[mac56]

3. Beat me to it!

"Polishing the helicopter" is one of those phrases that sounds like it should be dirty, but isn't.

[geardaddy]

4. LOL

[Blue_Tires]

5. Su-24 Fencer?

At least step your game up and buzz us with the high-end equipment, and not the junk...




https://twitter.com/USNavy/status/720333286698909698

[happyslug]

6. It was unarmed, so the SU-24 was the ideal plane

Based on the reports this appears to be Russia sending a message that the Southern Baltic Sea is NOT a NATO Lake. Sending an UNARMED plane is idea, if NATO shoots it down, you have a provocation by NATO with no real loss by the Russians. Sorry, from the Russian point of view an ideal plane to send on such a mission.

The real question is where on the Baltic did this take place? Poland has Gdansk, but the Russians have Kaliningrad. Those two cities are only 79 miles apart with the border between Poland and that Russian enclave about 2/3rds of that distance between those two cities. How close to Kaliningrad did this action occur? Was it a warning from Russia to stay away from Kaliningrad or a warning that the South Baltic is a Russian lake (a concept Poland, Sweden. Finland, Denmark and the Baltic states would reject).

Thus where this incident occurred is more important then what plane did it.

[Blue_Tires]

8. 1. It was a joke

2. Even if I wasn't joking, the Russians could have at least sent over an unarmed Su-33 or Su-35 (don't they love us enough to send their very best?)

3. This is a frequent occurrence so in the long run the WHERE, WHY and HOW are irrelevant... All these stunts serve to do is just provide some primo photo opportunities for planespotters...

[Leontius]

9. The Russians need to get the fuck out of the rump of East Prussia.

After they cleanup the toxic waste zone they created there.

[happyslug]

11. You know it is mostly Russians living there?

And the Southern half of what use to be East Prussia has mostly Poles. Do you want the Poles to leave that half of old East Prussia also? Between Germans vacating the area in front of the Russia advance in 1944 and 1945 AND Stalin's policy of Ethnic cleansing, removing most if not all of the Germans from both areas (as while as Silesia and Eastern Pomerania). Poles replaced the Germans in the Polish half of East Prussia, as while as in Silesia and Pomerania.

More on Selesia:

http://www.krausehouse.ca/krause/silesia.htm

More on Pomerania:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomerania

As to Kaliningrad oblast (the region around the City of Kaliningrad) has almost no Germans in it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad_Oblast

86.4% of the population are Russians, Lithuanians make up 1.1% of the population, and Poles .3 % of the population, Germans .8%, Ukrainians 3.7% and Belorussians 3.3% :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad_Oblast#Ethnic_groups

Thus for the Russians to give it up, at least 86% of the population have to be resettled, as you willing to take them in? They have to live SOMEPLACE and most have lived in Kaliningrad their whole lives, as had their parents and grandparents. Furthermore who is going to PAY for the transfer of these people? Russian wants them to stay so do not expect Russia to pay for it, thus are you?

The Polish and Lithuanian Governments do NOT want to pay to remove the Russians, so they are content with the Russians living in Kaliningrad (Lithuania has the lowest number of Ethnic Russians in their Country among the Baltic states and do NOT want that Russian population as part of Lithuania, and neither do the Poles).

The other two Baltic States, Estonia and Latvia, have sizable ethnic Russian populations, who they forbid to vote even through their were born in those states UNLESS they can trace their ancestors back to Russians who lived in those states pre 1939 (and most ethnic Russians in both States can not). Both countries refuse to pay to remove those ethnic Russians so they remain, mostly in the cities. Lithuania and Poland do NOT want that same problem so they do NOT want Kaliningrad.

In simple terms no one but Russia wants Kaliningrad, so if the Russians would pull out you will end up with an Independent State in the Baltic with a huge Russian population. That is also unacceptable to Poland and Lithuania. In simple terms the best that can be is the present situation. No one is willing to do mass expulsions of population today, so the present situation is the best option given all the other options.

[Xithras]

13. And give it to who? The Germans?

Putting aside the disturbing fact that you just called for a full scale ethnic cleansing in modern Europe....

East Prussia was ethnically and historically German until the Germans fled or were expelled at the close of WW2. The Poles only make up less than 1% of the population and have no historical claim to that land. Other Baltic ethnicities only make up a few percent of the population (less than 5, IIRC), and most of THEM are the descendants of Soviet era immigrants themselves.

The German government has stated that they don't want the land back. The population there is almost exclusively Russian and wants to remain a part of Russia.

So who are they supposed to "get the fuck out" for? It's their land!

[uhnope]

7. embarrassing act of a wannabe world power. nt

[MowCowWhoHow III]

10. Pretty close. Sooner or later there'll be an accident. Then what?

[maxrandb]

12. This kind of thing happens all the time

We would leave Norfolk, and every time, about 13 nautical miles out, there would be a Russian Trawler (Fishing Boat), that was bristling with so much electronic warfare gear it looked like the USS ENTERPRISE. Not sure what kind of fish they were looking for, but it wasn't big blue tuna.

They would purposely get in the way when we were doing underway replenishments, requiring two US Navy side by side ships to make course corrections, or "ROMEO CORPUN". We didn't mind most times because it was good practice of a much needed skill.

We'd enter the Baltic and get buzzed by Russian Bear Bombers, or get greeted by Libyan PT Boats when we passed Gibraltar and entered the Med.

BTW- we would do the same. Track and harass one of their Submarines with a Destroyer until they surfaced. Fly observation flights. Go silent and dark until we were 12 miles from their Baltic Coast and then turn on and radiate every radar that we had.

A couple of times, we'd pull into a liberty port and run into some of the Russian Sailors in the "gut" (Sailors know what that is). They could party their asses off.

Anyway, it is dangerous, but we were all trained to maintain a cool head.

It's what we do. We were interested in their capability and they were interested in ours.