South Korea fires 360 warning shots after Russian, Chinese military planes enter airspace

The three Russian planes earlier entered the South Korean air defence identification zone with two Chinese military planes

Moscow denied it had violated South Korean airspace, and China’s foreign ministry said all countries have freedom of movement in Seoul’s air space identification zone

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South Korea’s Defence Ministry says multiple Russian military planes violated the South Korean airspace off its east coast on Tuesday. Photo: Kyodo

Published: 10:59am, 23 Jul 2019Updated: 4:13pm, 23 Jul 2019

South Korean jets fired 360 warning shots after a Russian military plane violated South Korea’s airspace on Tuesday, Seoul officials said, in the first such incident between the countries.

Three Russian military planes – two Tu-95 bombers and one A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft – initially entered South Korea’s air defence identification zone off its east coast before one of them entered the country’s territorial sky, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said.

A ministry official, requesting anonymity due to department rules, said the three Russian planes entered the South Korean air defence identification zone with two Chinese military planes. But it wasn’t immediately known whether the two countries deliberately did so, according to the official.

Moscow later denied its aircraft had violated South Korean airspace, saying its jets had carried out planned drills over international waters.

“It was not the first time that South Korean pilots tried to unsuccessfully interfere with the flights of the Russian aviation forces above the neutral waters of the Sea of Japan,” the defence ministry said in a statement.

It also denied that South Korean planes fired warning shots.

China’s foreign ministry said South Korea’s air space identification zone is not a territorial airspace and all countries enjoy freedom of movement there.

The airspace was above a group of South Korean-held islets roughly halfway between South Korea and Japan that has been a source of territorial disputes between them. Russia isn’t a party in those disputes.