US B-1B Lancer supersonic bombers flew from their South Dakota air base to the Black Sea to drill with NATO partners and, for the first time, Ukrainian Air Force jets. The bombers carried a new anti-ship missile, posturing against Russia’s expanding Black Sea Fleet just as the US has against Beijing’s naval presence in the South China Sea.
In the latest dramatic display of force by Washington, two B-1B Lancer bombers flew from Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota to Eastern Europe and the Black Sea, linking up with a number of air forces, but most notably that belonging to Kiev, where the US helped oversee a pro-Western coup in 2014 by right-wing, Russophobic forces.
According to the release, the American bombers drilled with Polish F-16s and MiG-29s, Romanian F-16s and MiG-21s and Greek F-16s, in addition to Ukrainian Su-27s and MiG-29s. All countries except Ukraine are members of the NATO alliance; Kiev works with NATO as a partner and has repeatedly attempted to join.
Three Romanian MiG-21s escort two B1B Lancers during a training mission for Bomber Task Force Europe, May 29, 2020.
In response, however, the Russian Air Force dispatched its own Su-27s as well as Su-30SMs, an upgraded version of the interceptor, to turn the bombers around as they closed in on the Russian border. The Lancers were originally designed for low-altitude sprints into the former Soviet Union to deliver an undetected nuclear strike.
Polish F-16s and MiG-29s escort a B1B Lancer during a training mission for Bomber Task Force Europe, May 29, 2020.
A Ukrainian Su-27 Flanker and MiG-29 Fulcrum escort two B1B Lancers during a training mission for Bomber Task Force Europe, May 29, 2020.
“LRASM plays a critical role in ensuring US naval access to operate in both open-ocean and littoral environments due to its enhanced ability to discriminate between targets from long range,” Lt. Col. Timothy Albrecht, the Bomber Task Force planner for the 603rd Air Operations Center at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, said in the EUCOM release.
The Pentagon recently deployed four Lancers to Guam in the Philippine Sea to run similar maritime patrols over it and the South China Sea as a counter to China’s burgeoning naval forces. This deployment followed a series of globetrotting missions to Asia and Europe by Lancers based in the United States, much like this recent one to the Black Sea region, in demonstration of the Pentagon’s new “dynamic employment model” meant to keep adversaries on their toes by interrupting predictable force deployments.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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