[LegendHasIt]

Force them down if they enter British airspace. Make Putin negotiate for the release of the people. (Keep the aircraft).

[SoldierMedic]

"In London, Yuri Fedotov, the Russian Ambassador to London, said that Russia would soon respond against Britain and admitted that relations were strained.

“The response will follow. It takes time. We are serious people,” he said. (The Russian Ambassador said)

[DB]

Amazing.

Russia just continues to get more belligerent.

This has to be raising red flags all over Europe and the Pentegon.

I really don’t see how this plays in Russia’s favor, seems really stupid to me.

[Rummenigge]

“The Russians turned back before they reached British airspace,” an RAF spokesman said.

another piece of no-news news.

russian bears are subhunters and reckon planes - as long as they are in international airspace there’s no news.

[Pro-Bush]

Does pu-pu need attention again?

[Ronin]

A couple of Bears on a “tweak the lion’s tail mission” guaranteed to raise aggrevation but nothing else.

These are turboprop birds. Huge, slow, ungainly and utterly defenseless to any fighter aircraft manufactured after WWII.

Now if they had done this with a couple of Backfires it might have been a different story.

[capitalist229]

Putin is leveraging Russia's enormous oil windfall.

BUMP

[wolfcreek]

These actions are unnecessary and insane on Russia’s part. If these bombers actually had nukes on board, this could have gone terribly wrong and over what?

[yldstrk]

Keep pressuring the bullies, GB. You have to bully a bully.

[PGalt]

Interesting. Thanks to contributors to this thread.

[normy]

Be sure that many enemies paid attention to how the Iran hostage crisis was handled.

Look around. There are far more powerful and dangerous nations against Britain and the U.S. than are for it. All it takes is a little balls by Putin. A nuke in Iraq,Russian strikes at the U.K., an all out Arab attack on Israel. Oil Embargo by our Arab pals and a Chinese strike at Taiwan and Japan in sync. Nuke in D.C. by terrorist cell. Nuke in South Korea. Its possible, if someone has the balls or is nuts enough to start it, and Putin is nuts enough.