Two Eurofighter Typhoons were dispatched from RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland to meet a pair of Tupolev Tu-95 which are icons from the Cold War.
It happened as the strategic bombers flew south over the
North Sea and they were later tracked by Portuguese F-16s in the
Atlantic before they flew home.
The
Ministry of Defence (MoD) said: "The RAF Typhoon pilots visually
identified the Russian aircraft and escorted them through the UK flight information region."
They were part of an eight plane formation made up of four Tupolev Tu-95 bombers and four refuelling tanker aircrafts.
They
were spotted over the Norwegian sea in the early hours of yesterday
where F-16s were scrambled from Norway and tracked the formation.
The
eight plane group from Russia eventually broke up with six heading back
home and two flying close to Britain where RAF Typhoons met them.
It was part of four groups of Kremlin aircrafts NATO had intercepted in around 24 hours since Tuesday.
In
a statement the alliance said: "These sizeable Russian flights
represent an unusual level of air activity over European airspace."
A spokesman stressed there had been no violation of NATO airspace as
there was last week when a Russian spy plane briefly crossed Estonia's
border.
However, he added that such high numbers of dispatches by the Russian air force in one day were rare in recent years.
A
Norwegian military spokesman added: "We see Russian aircraft near our
airspace on a regular basis but what was unusual is that it was a large
number of aircraft and pushed further south than we normally see."
In
a second incident on Wednesday two Russian bombers accompanied by a
pair of fighter jets were being tracked by Turkish aircraft over the
Black Sea.
While flights of seven Russian warplanes were monitored on Tuesday and Wednesday over the Baltic Sea.
On Tuesday, German and Danish planes were involved in tracking them as well as aircraft from non-NATO states Sweden and Finland.
NATO
said it had conducted more than 100 such intercepts of Russian aircraft
this year so far - about three times as many as in 2013.
This was prior to the confrontation with Moscow about clashes between Russian separatists and government forces in Ukraine.
President
Vladimir Putin has said he is committed to reinvigorating Russia's
armed forces which has been undermined by the country's economic problems.
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