Torygraph:
Russia to resume Cold War bomber flights
Russia will immediately resume long-range strategic bomber flights on a "permanent" basis, ending a 15-year suspension of the missions, President Vladimir Putin has said.
Mr Putin said a halt in long-range bombers' flights after the Soviet collapse had affected Russia's security as other nations had continued such missions - a oblique reference to the US.
"I have made a decision to resume regular flights of Russian strategic aviation," he said. "Starting today, such tours of duty will be conducted regularly and on a strategic scale. Our pilots have been grounded for too long; they are happy to start a new life."
Soviet bombers routinely flew such missions to areas from which nuclear-tipped cruise missiles could be launched at the United States. But that stopped in the post-Soviet economic meltdown.
In Washington, a State Department Spokesman said the US was not troubled by the decision. "It's interesting. We certainly are not in the kind of posture we were with what used to be the Soviet Union. It's a different era. If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again, that's their decision."
Mr Putin's comments came as he and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, attended an unprecedented show of joint military force amid fears that the Russian leader is trying to turn an increasingly powerful central Asian alliance into a second Warsaw Pact. The United States will be anxiously watching the military manoeuvres - held under the auspices of the six-member Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) - from afar after its request to send observers was rejected.
Washington has plenty of reasons to be uneasy. Founded in 2001, the SCO, which includes the four central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well as China and Russia, is rapidly gaining a reputation as an anti-Western organisation. That image seems to be one that Mr Putin is happy to cultivate. Analysts say that the Russian president believes the organisation is emerging as a bloc that is rapidly becoming powerful enough to stand up to the West...............