Anglo-Russian relations have taken another battering after the RAF escorted two Russian Bear bombers off the coast of Cornwall, as Moscow reacted angrily over a warning by Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, about the threat it may pose to Nato’s Baltic states.

RAF Typhoons were scrambled from their base in Coningsby, Lincolnshire, on Wednesday in response to the latest in a series of incursions by Russian warplanes. On Thursday David Cameron accused Moscow of trying to make a point, while the Kremlin furiously denounced Fallon’s warning that Vladimir Putin could repeat the tactics used to destabilise Ukraine in Baltic members of the Nato alliance.

During an event at Felixstowe, Suffolk, Cameron said: “I think what this episode demonstrates is that we do have the fast jets, the pilots, the systems in place to protect the United Kingdom. I suspect what’s happening here is that the Russians are trying to make some sort of a point and I don’t think we should dignify it with too much of a response.”

Russian bombers testing the RAF hark back to cold war for Putin and the west Read more

Tensions were already high as a result of Vladimir Putin’s backing of separatist rebels into Ukraine and the ongoing public inquiry in London into the 2006 killing of the former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko. Britain has been an enthusiastic advocate of EU and US sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, and on Wednesday Cameron warned Putin that if he did not desist from supporting the rebels there would have financial and economic consequences for his country for many years to come.

RAF planes have been scrambled about once a month recently to escort Russian warplanes away from UK airspace, although the number of times it happened last year – eight – is not particularly high in a historical context.

A Cornwall resident, Sue Bamford, 45, told the Guardian that one of the Russian airplanes had definitely entered British airspace as she had seen it flying inland while taking a driving lesson. The Ministry of Defence said the Russian warplanes had not entered British airspace on any of the occasions when RAF planes had been scrambled.



Last month, Moscow’s ambassador was summoned by the Foreign Office after a flight by two Russian bombers over the Channel, which Britain said posed a potential danger to civilian flights.



Although there is supposed to be a ceasefire in Ukraine, fighting has continued and Fallon warned on Wednesday that Nato must be ready for Russian aggression in “whatever form it takes”, whether it involved irregular troops, cyber-attacks or inflaming tensions with ethnic Russian minorities in nations seen by Moscow as part of the country’s “near abroad”.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Aleksander Lukashevich, responded on Thursday by describing Fallon’s words as “beyond diplomatic ethics” and said the Kremlin would “find a way to react”.

The chairman of the Commons defence committee, Rory Stewart, sounded a warning that the UK was facing a “genuinely dangerous situation” with Russia. He told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One that there was now a “razor edge which western policy makers need to walk”, and to do nothing could lead to as much violence as taking action.

“If they do nothing, Putin, who is a real opportunist, will be encouraged to push his luck and see if he can humiliate Nato,” he said. “If on the other hand we do too much, we could risk provoking an overreaction.”







