Japan says Russian patrol plane ‘violates’ its airspace three times

Defence Minister Minoru Kihara calls on the Russian government to prevent a recurrence.

Japan has protested to the Kremlin after a Russian patrol plane entered its airspace three times, Defence Minister Minoru Kihara says.

“We confirmed today that a Russian Il-38 patrol aircraft has violated our airspace over our territorial waters north of Rebun Island, Hokkaido, on three occasions,” Kihara told reporters of Monday’s incidents.

Japanese F-15 and F-35 fighter jets warned the Russian military over the radio before firing flares during the third incursion, the defence minister added and said he has called on the Russian government through diplomatic channels to prevent a recurrence.

Kihara also noted that Monday’s incident was “the first publicly announced” airspace incursion by a Russian aircraft since June 2019 when a Tu-95 bomber entered Japanese airspace over the southern island of Okinawa and around the Izu Islands south of Tokyo.

Government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said Japan “will refrain from giving any definitive information on the intent and purpose of this action, but the Russian military has been active in the vicinity of our country since the invasion of Ukraine”.

Japan has supported the Western position on Ukraine, providing Kyiv with financial and materiel support and sanctioning Russian individuals and organisations since Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour.

The Russian government has not yet commented on the air incursions.

Japan has territorial disputes with Russia over four of the Kuril Islands between Hokkaido and Kamchatka and also with China and Taiwan over the remote Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, called the Diaoyu Islands by China and the Tiaoyutai Islands by Taiwan.

In August, Japan scrambled fighter jets after the first confirmed incursion by a Chinese military aircraft into its airspace with Tokyo calling it a “serious violation” of its sovereignty.

China has deepened its relationship with Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

This month, Russian and Chinese warships held joint drills in the Sea of Japan, part of a major naval exercise that Russian President Vladimir Putin said was the largest of its kind for three decades.

China said the military drills were designed to improve strategic cooperation between the two countries and “strengthen their ability to jointly deal with security threats”.