Announcement made immediately after Putin received the American emissaries: Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bombers and fighter jets, 5-hour mission
A Russian TU-22M3 bomber, on March 6, 2023. PHOTO: Not supplied / WillWest News / Profimedia
Russian Tupolev Tu-22M3 long-range strategic bombers conducted a scheduled patrol flight over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on its Telegram channel on Thursday.
The bombers were accompanied by Sukhoi Su-35S and Su-30SM fighter jets, the ministry said, according to Reuters and Sky News.
The patrol mission lasted more than five hours.
Russian aircraft routinely fly over the neutral waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Baltic Sea and Black Sea in accordance with international regulations, the Moscow ministry added.
Russia regularly carries out such patrol missions to demonstrate its power, Reuters notes. A similar patrol flight by Russian long-range bombers was carried out over the sea in October last year as well.
The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad shares a Baltic Sea coast with a number of EU member states, including Germany, Poland and Sweden.
The announcement of the Tu-22M3 strategic bomber patrol flight came minutes after Russian President Vladimir Putin began a meeting with three US envoys in the Kremlin late Thursday to discuss proposals to end the war in Ukraine.
Late night talk about Ukraine. Putin has already welcomed Trump's emissaries to the Kremlin – VIDEO
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were accompanied to Moscow by Josh Gruenbaum, recently appointed by US President Donald Trump as a senior adviser in his Peace Council, a body tasked with resolving international conflicts.
Putin welcomed the Americans shortly before midnight in Moscow after Trump said Thursday that a deal on the Ukraine war was “pretty close” and Witkoff said negotiations had come down to one last issue.
The press release sent by the Kremlin about this meeting states that Vladimir Putin was accompanied, as in previous meetings with the American side, by his foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, and special emissary Kirill Dmitriev.
