South Korea’s military says it has deployed fighter jets in response to Chinese and Russian military planes flying into its air defence zone unannounced.
Four Russian and two Chinese aircraft crossed into the Korea Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ) over the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, between 11:53am (02:53 GMT) and 12:10pm (03:10 GMT) on Thursday and then departed, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
The planes did not violate South Korea’s territorial airspace, the military said.
An ADIZ is usually an area where countries may unilaterally demand that foreign aircraft take special steps to identify themselves, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization.
That differs from a nation’s airspace, which usually means the space above its territory, extending 12 nautical miles away from its coastline.
Unlike airspace, there are no international laws that govern air defence zones.
Moscow does not recognise Korea’s air defence zone. Beijing has said the zone is not territorial airspace and all countries should enjoy freedom of movement there.
