Eleven military vessels from China and Russia found operating near the Aleutian Islands last week were met by four U.S. Navy destroyers, Alaska’s two U.S. senators said.
The two Republican senators, Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, issued a joint news release Saturday night saying they had been briefed about the operation.
“We have been in close contact with leadership from Alaska Command for several days now and received detailed classified briefings about the foreign vessels,” Murkowski said.
“The incursion by 11 Chinese and Russian warships operating together – off the coast of Alaska – is yet another reminder that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators in Beijing and Moscow,” Sullivan said.
The war in Ukraine and China-Taiwan tensions have strained U.S. relations with the two countries. “This move is highly provocative,” Brent Sadler, a retired Navy captain and senior research fellow at the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, told The Wall Street Journal.
Although the senators’ statement suggested the vessels were passing through U.S. waters, the Northern Command told the Journal the combined force did not appear to enter U.S. territory. “Air and maritime assets under our commands conducted operations to assure the defense of the United States and Canada. The patrol remained in international waters and was not considered a threat,” it told the Journal in a statement.
Source : USA Today
