MOSCOW. April 11 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia has registered eight violations of its aerial border this year, Air Force Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Mikhailov said on Friday.
"Over 12,000 people are on combat duty in air defense units every day. Thanks to their efforts, radio-technical troops have tracked over 40,000 targets this year alone, including 21,000 foreign planes, 217 of them being warplanes and 82 air scouts. Eight violations of the Russian state border have been detected this year," Mikhailov told a conference timed to Air Defense Troops Day.
Speaking about flights of U.S. strategic air scouts over Georgian areas bordering on Russia, the commander-in-chief said they would have been destroyed if they had entered the Russian airspace.
"We see these flights, and we escort U.S. spy planes with our fighters. If there had been a violation of Russia's aerial borders, the plane would have been destroyed," Mikhailov said.
"When the U-2 was flying for the first time without the escort of our planes, it was positioned 25-30km from the Russian border, but when SU-27 Flankers took off, the U.S. spy plane moved to a distance of 50-60km from the border," he noted.
"Even though we did not switch radars on, the U.S. pilot at once moved further from the border, being afraid of making a mistake and entering our zone," Mikhailov stressed.
According to him, 74 Air Force servicemen have received state awards and 12 servicemen have got honorary titles this year. On the eve of Air Defense Troops Day, 17 officers were promoted ahead of schedule and 72 officers got military ranks one level over the ones their post entitles them to.
The commander-in-chief noted that the conference is taking place on the eve of Cosmonautics Day.
"National cosmonautics that has unbreakable ties with the Air Force is going through hard times. However its best representatives continue working selflessly and looking into the future with optimism," Mikhailov concluded.