US ally Japan just had a close call with a Russian military airplane. The country’s defense ministry has condemned what it says was a blatant violation of Japanese airspace on Monday. 

Japan’s defense chief Minoru Kihara in a press briefing described that a Russian Il-38 reconnaissance plane breached Japan’s airspace above Rebun Island in the far north of the Japanese island chain. This is not far off the main northern island of Hokkaido.

Map via Research Gate

“The airspace violation was extremely regrettable,” Kihara said, detailing that in the aftermath Tokyo “strongly protested” to Moscow by diplomatic channels, demanding that future preventative measures be put in place.

Importantly, Japan disclosed that it scrambled multiple F-15 and F-35 fighter jets in response to the airspace violation, and that the Russian aircraft appeared to ignore initial warnings.

That’s when the Japanese fighters fired flares to escalate the warning, after which the Russian plane eventually departed the area.

Japan’s defense ministry described that the aircraft violated sovereign airspace three times during a five-hour total flight. The Russian plane spent up to a minute inside Japan’s airspace during each violation instance.

China and Russia have been conducting joint naval and aerial patrols in the area, putting both US and Japanese forces on high alert. There was a also a recent joint naval sail-through of the area.

Russian Ilyushin Il-38 anti-submarine aircraft, image source: Kremlin

The Associated Press writes of the latest maneuvers, “The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, accompanied by two destroyers, sailed between Japan’s westernmost island of Yonaguni and nearby Iriomote, entering close to Japan’s waters.”

According to more, “According to Japan’s military, it scrambled jets nearly 669 times between April 2023 and March 2024, about 70% of the time against Chinese military aircraft, though that did not include airspace violations.”