The Daily Populous Friday December 26th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by newsukraine.rbc.ua and submitted by crainor

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent nuclear-capable bombers to threaten northern Britain, carrying out a long-range Christmas flight over the Norwegian Sea. NATO scrambled fighter jets, Mirror reports.

As reported, NATO was forced to scramble fighter jets to monitor the massive Russian aircraft.

Su-33 fighter jets escorted the long-range bombers during the flight, which, according to journalists, may have been a deliberate attempt to irritate the West near Santa Claus' flight route from the North Pole.

"Tu-95MS long-range bombers of the Russian Aerospace Forces made a scheduled flight in the airspace over the neutral waters of the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea. The flight duration was more than seven hours," the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The Russian ministry added that at specific points along the route, the long-range bombers were accompanied by fighter jets from foreign states, but did not specify which NATO air forces intercepted the Tu-95MS aircraft.

It is known that Russia has also used such bombers to strike Ukraine.

In October, Poland scrambled its MiG-29 fighter jets to intercept a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft. This was the third such incident in a week.

In September, NATO scrambled fighter jets after a Russian reconnaissance aircraft was detected over the Baltic Sea. Two days earlier, on September 19, Russian MiG-31 fighter jets violated Estonia's airspace and remained there for 12 minutes.

In response, Estonia's Foreign Ministry summoned Russia's chargé d'affaires to protest, and the government appealed to NATO allies for consultations under Article 4. Russia denies any violation.

In addition, Norway reported that Russia violated its airspace three times this year, with each violation lasting from one to four minutes.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously said NATO countries intend to shoot down only those Russian aircraft that attack their territory.

At the same time, Russia has threatened NATO with war if its aircraft are shot down.

kastbort2021 on December 25th, 2025 at 16:54 UTC »

I've said this before, but Russian missions with long-distance bombers isn't really anything new. They do this all the time over the Barents sea, and sometimes they do longer runs down towards UK.

When they get too close, QRA planes are sent out, and they fly together for some time.

Obviously this will be brought up more in media these days, because of all the tension - but it really isn't anything to panic over.

dapperdavy on December 25th, 2025 at 15:11 UTC »

I was an Air cadet in the 80s, this was a common occurrence then, and I'm sure ever since. Slow news day?

Agitated-Ad6744 on December 25th, 2025 at 14:43 UTC »

Russia wants desperately to be taken seriously

instead they will be taken by Xi from the east cheeks