Moscow Orders Long-Range Bomber Flights.

President Vladimir Putin announced on Aug. 17 that Russia would immediately resume the Soviet-era practice of sending strategic bombers on long-range flights well beyond its borders. Speaking as he and Chinese President Hu Jintao wrapped up joint military exercises at Chebarkul in Russia's Ural Mountains, Putin said: "We have decided to renew flights of Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis. In 1992 Russia unilaterally stopped flights by its strategic aviation in distant military patrol regions. Unfortunately not everyone followed our example and strategic flights by other states continue" - an apparent reference to the US. He added: "This creates certain problems for ensuring Russia's security".

Initial US reaction was mild. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "That is a decision for them to take. It's interesting".

In the first flight, 14 bombers and 6 supporting airplanes took off at midnight on Aug. 17, Putin said in remarks carried on TV. The Aug. 17 sortie included Tu-160 and Tu-95 airplanes, known by their NATO appellations as Blackjacks and Bears, according to the Russian Defence Ministry's Website. The bombers were flying over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the North Pole, and were being escorted by NATO fighter jets, the site said, recalling Cold War-era standoffs.

Russia had, over the years, periodically sent its ageing bomber fleet on missions, but only during major military training exercises; the country then was too poor to fly the planes often. That is no longer the case. Russia now is far wealthier than in the 1990s, not only thanks to high energy prices but also as a result of better economic development policies and resource management since Putin came to power in 2000.

What is new is that the bombers will now regularly fly long-range sorties far from Russian soil, not only during military exercises. Putin suggested that the decision was a response to military threats to Russia.

The US and other Western powers have been deliberately silent on the SCO military exercise, in the Chelyabinsk region, which included troops from China and Central Asian states in an elaborate war game simulating troops storming a village taken over by terrorists, dodging mock roadside bombs and rappelling from helicopters.

Putin said of the bomber flights: "From this day on, the duty of this kind, the combat duty, will be held on a regular basis". The Russian president added: "Our pilots have been sitting on the ground for too long".

Earlier this month, Russian bombers flew near the American military base on the Pacific Island of Guam, creating a jittery incident. Gen Pavel Androsov, the commander of long-range aviation, boasted that sortie prompted the US to scramble fighter jets which flew so close to the Russians that the pilots "smiled at each other and then peacefully went their separate ways".

The Pentagon confirmed the Russian airplanes were in the air but said no jets were scrambled. In July, Russian Bears flew towards Scotland but turned back before entering British airspace. In that case, the Royal Air Force confirmed it had scrambled fighter jets in response.

In Crawford, Texas, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe on Aug. 17 told reporters: "Militaries around the world engage in a variety of different activities. It's not entirely surprising that the Russian Air Force, the Russian military, might engage in this kind of activity".

Russian TV showed footage of bombers soaring into the air, refuelling and landing, though it was unclear whether the footage depicted the sorties of Aug. 17. Russia has 79 strategic aircraft, capable of carrying 900 cruise missiles, Russian TV reported, far fewer than at the height of the Cold War. The BBC on Aug. 17 said its Russian-language FM broadcasts had been taken off the air by its Moscow distributor, which said its programmes were "foreign propaganda".

The decision by Radio Bolshoye - and similar moves by two other radio stations in the past year - leaves the BBC's Russian-language services available only on medium and shortwave broadcasts. The parent company of Radio Bolshoye said its licence did not allow it to retransmit BBC's programmes and that the station would instead focus on originally produced material.