Russia Begins Inspection Flights Over United States

[Purveyor]

MOSCOW, July 28 (RIA Novosti) – Russian military inspectors will begin on Sunday a series of monitoring flights over the United States under the international Open Skies Treaty, a Russian nuclear security official said.

According to Sergei Ryzhkov, head of the National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, Russian experts will carry out two consecutive monitoring missions in a Tupolev Tu-154M/LK-1 aircraft from July 28 through August 12.

“The missions will be carried out from the Travis Air Force Base [in California] and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base [in Ohio],” Ryzhkov said.

“These will be Russia’s 23rd and 24th monitoring flights in 2013 over the territories of the Open Skies Treaty member states,” he added.

Russian inspectors, accompanied by US specialists, will operate surveillance equipment on board of the aircraft as set out in the international Open Skies Treaty.

more...

http://en.rian.ru/world/20130728/182457138/Russia-Begins-Inspection-Flights-Over-United-States.html

[Igel]

1. Yeah, one of the stranger almost-post-Cold-War initiatives.

I remembered the idea at the time, but didn't notice that Russia had finally ratified it.

Odd, having an initiative conceived to help rest the Cold War get signed after the USSR ceased to exist, ratified a year later, and then come into force in 2002. Bush I and Putin sort of working together 20 years apart in a really weird sort of way.