The US military has moved more than 100 soldiers and mobile missile systems on one of the uninhabited Aleutian Islands in the western part of Alaska, amid the recent increase in Russian military aircraft and ships approaching the American territory, the Associated Press reported, cited by BTA.
Eight Russian warplanes and four naval vessels, including two submarines, approached Alaska last week as Russia and China conducted joint military exercises. None of the planes violated US airspace, and a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday there was no cause for alarm.
"This isn't the first time we've seen Russians and Chinese flying, you know, in close proximity, and that's obviously something we're watching closely and also something we're prepared to respond to,'' Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder at a press conference yesterday.
On Sept. 12, the Army sent the soldiers to Shemya Island, about 1,930 km southwest of Anchorage, where the US Air Force maintains an air station dating back to World War II. The soldiers took with them two HIMARS artillery missile systems.
U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan added that the U.S. military had sent a guided-missile destroyer and a Coast Guard vessel to the western Alaska region after Russia and China began the "Ocean-24" military exercises. in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans on September 10.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command said it detected and tracked Russian warplanes operating off Alaska for four days. There were two planes each on September 11, 13, 14 and 15.
Sullivan has called for a greater military presence in the Aleutian Islands, while advocating for the United States to respond with force to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. According to him, the US Navy should reopen its closed base in Adak, in the Aleutian Islands. The facility was closed in 1997.