Considering the state of things, not that unusual…

Russian bombers neared NATO summit on unusual practice run, Norway’s military says

Two Russian strategic bombers on an unusual practice run Thursday neared the Netherlands, where NATO defense ministers were meeting, the Norwegian military said. Another set of bombers earlier Thursday flew unusually close to far northern Norwegian territory, but remained in international air space, military spokesman Lt. Col. John Espen Lien said. On both occasions, the flights started from the Russian Arctic.

Lien said the later flight – by two Tupolev 160 strategic bombers – followed a course near the Norwegian coast and between Britain and Denmark, before turning back some 190 kilometers (120 miles) northwest of the Netherlands, where NATO defense ministers were meeting in the city of Noordwijk.

“They were flying a very unusual course, compared to what we are used to,” Lien told The Associated Press by telephone from north Norway. “It could have been a coincidence, but there is also a chance that it was a signal” meant for the Western alliance.

Norway did not send F-16 fighters to intercept the first planes because of “bad weather.” There’s probably no need to go on heightened alert everytime a Russian plane make an unusual course in today’s post-Cold War world, but that an intercept plane was not sent on grounds of weather does not reassure me.