U.S. to carry out inspection flight over Russia; Russia to do so over UK

American military experts will carry out an observation flight over the territories of Russia and Belarus under the Open Skies Treaty between July 25 and 29.

The Russian Defense Ministry told Interfax that the inspection will involve 25 people, including the crew of the OS-135 observation aircraft.

"It will be the sixth inspection flight of American experts over Russian territory this year in the framework of the treaty," a ministry official said.

During the same period, Russian military experts will carry out an observation flight over Great Britain and Northern Ireland on an An-30B reconnaissance aircraft, the official said.

www.interfax.ru...


What do you suppose will they inspect and why

More to the point, why arent the Russians inspecting the US?

To answer your question, its more of an allowed intelligence gathering flight, instead of using a satillite or spyplane, the signiture countries are allowed unfettered access to each others airspace to gather intelligence.

www.state.gov...

Honestly this is beyond me ....Why on earth would Russia allow the US to overfly over it while fully knowing that the US will gather intelligence during the overflight ..... and the same logic extends to the UK too.

And if anyone knows that someone is above to get shots of your new airplane prototype or missile bases or anything like that, imo it is common sense to hide it in a cave or a hangar.....what use will the overflight be of

I always thought that countries(especially the ones that are not the best of friends) make it difficult for others to spy over them

[edit on 24-7-2005 by Stealth Spy]

the Russian inspected, conducted observation flight over US last month, now they are inspecting the 52nd states: The British Island (also called U.K.)

where were you Stealth Spy?

try to do a search on this board or google to learn more...

[edit on 24-7-2005 by betaiso]

Originally posted by betaiso
the Russian inspected, conducted observation flight over US last month, now they are inspecting the 52nd states: The British Island (also called U.K.)

Please please please never ever say that again. You will provoke strong reactions from me and many of the UK members that veiw this board

Yes, it might even get people from the UK saying that its the other way around, that the USA is a part of the great British colony that we didnt want anymore...Bit like Austraila, most of Africa, large parts of the middle east....etc, etc...

Am sure the comments were made in good humour though.....

Originally posted by betaiso
now they are inspecting the 52nd states: The British Island (also called U.K.)

The Open Skies treaty was designed to give signatory nations the opportunity to build trust with one another by allowing nations to overfly and observe other nations, so that accurate estimates on conventional forces could be obtained.

Not everyone has access to fancy spy satellite data, and this treaty helps build trust by allowing other nations to "browse" our territory for large and obvious military complexes, bases, and infrastructure.

There are very strict limitations on what kind of equipment can be carried by overflight aircraft, and some advanced planning and notification of these flights are required.

In contrast, challenge inspections conducted under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) are much more intrusive and hard to deal with from a security perspective. Open Skies is more or less a pain-in-the-ass type of inspection, that can occasionally screw up a planned test or operation, but they are no big deal really.

A lot of very interesting information of the subject can be found at the DTIRP home page, located here, which is hosted by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).