MOSCOW, July 25./TASS/. The strategic synergy between Russia and China should get the Pentagon to rethink its plans to use strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, Alexander Stepanov, a military expert, program director of the Academy of Political Sciences, told TASS.

As the Russian Defense Ministry reported earlier, aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force jointly patrolled the air over the waters of the Chukchee and Bering seas, and the northern part of the Pacific.

"The response to the provocation in Finland with the parade of American B-52 Stratofortress thermonuclear weapon carriers was not long in coming. Two Tu-95MS strategic bombers of the Russian Aerospace Forces and two H-6K bombers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force performed a joint flight for the first time, entering the Alaskan air defense zone while remaining in international airspace. <...> Such strategic synergy between Russia and China should get those geniuses at the Pentagon to take a more balanced approach in their plans of flirting with the use of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles," said Stepanov, who is also senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Latin American Studies.

The expert reiterated that the Tu-95 MS long-range strategic missile carriers are an important element of Russia's nuclear triad, carrying Kh-102 missiles with a thermonuclear warhead with a yield of up to 1 megaton and a range of 5,500 kilometers. China's Hong-6K is also an element of China's strategic triad and is capable of carrying Long Sword-10K long-range precision cruise missiles with a range of up to 2,500 kilometers, he went on to say.

"The North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, in a panic, dispatched F-16 and F-35 jets, also involving Canadian CF-18s, to intercept this formidable group. The Pentagon was particularly surprised by the presence of Chinese strategic bombers in the Alaska area, he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry also reported that the Russian and Chinese did not violate the airspace of other nations during the patrol mission. At certain stages of the route, the air group was escorted by fighter jets of foreign countries. As the ministry emphasized, "the event was carried out as part of the implementation of the military cooperation plan for 2024 and is not directed against third countries."