A top Russian senator thanked U.S. Air Force Gen. Herbert Carlisle for calling Russia a threat, saying Monday he very much appreciates the compliment.
“The very fact that some other country is resurgent already represents a cause of concern for the Pentagon, though we can probably be glad about such compliment coming from an American,” Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee, said. “This is in some way a recognition. It looks like he was reported that Russia is resurging, and it is time to start worrying. Thank you for the kind words.”
Kosachev’s remarks came in response to a recent USA Today interview in which the general said the Pentagon’s concern was a “resurgent Russia,” Russian state news agency TASS reports.
“Their intent is to get us not to be there… So that the influence in those international spaces is controlled only by them. My belief is that we cannot allow that to happen. We have to continue to operate legally in international airspace and international waterways,” Carlisle noted, referring to what the Pentagon sees as increasingly aggressive activity by Russia and China outside their sovereign borders.
Carlisle said the Pentagon had been paying close attention to Russian aircraft activity in Eastern Europe and even off the West Coast of the United States.
“We have seen an increase,” Carlisle said. “All the way down to the California coast. The number and frequency has increased.”
“As they become more aggressive, you run the risk of miscalculation,” Carlisle added. “You don’t know where that’s going to lead, or end.”
Carlisle was also addressing increased action from Russian aircraft to disrupt U.S. military exercises in Eastern Europe. The Pentagon has complained Russian tactics are incredibly unsafe, but Russia has brushed off concerns.
“All flights of Russian planes are conducted in accordance with international regulations on the use of airspace,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement after a Su-27 fighter intercepted a U.S. RC-135 over the Baltic Sea. “The U.S. Air Force has two solutions: either not to fly near our borders or to turn the transponder on for identification.”
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