英国拦截两架俄罗斯轰炸机

英国拦截两架俄罗斯轰炸机 RAF scrambles fighters to intercept Russian bombers Russia’s ambassador to the UK was summoned to the Foreign Office on Thursday after two Russian bombers disrupted civilian air traffic over the English Channel. The RAF scrambled fighters to intercept them. 两架俄罗斯轰炸机干扰英吉利海峡上空的民用航空交通 后，英国外交部于周四召见俄罗斯驻英国大使。此前英国皇家空军(RAF)命令战斗机紧急起 飞对俄军机予以拦截。 The incident is the latest increasingly tense brush with Russian aircraft in the skies above Britain and other Nato-countries’ borders. 因俄罗斯飞机在英国以及其他北 约(Nato)国家边境上空的摩擦，地区局势越发紧张，此次事件是最新的一例。 It was also one of the most serious around British airspace so far, according to Whitehall officials. Russia’s ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko was last summoned by the Foreign Office in July over an incident involving the expulsion of a diplomat. He has not been called to account for increased Russian aerial activity by Britain before. 英国政府官员称，这也 是迄今为止在英国领空附近发生的最严重事件之一。俄罗斯大使亚历山大•雅科文科 (Alexander Yakovenko)上一次被英国外交部召见是在去年7月，起因是一起驱逐外交官事件。 此前他并未被要求就俄罗斯空中活动增多做出解释。 The two huge Russian Tu-95 bombers, known by fighter pilots as bears, flew across one of the busiest civilian flightpaths in Europe and had their transponders turned off, meaning that they could only be detected by radar and would have been invisible on regular air traffic control systems. 这两架巨型俄罗斯图-95(Tu-95)轰炸机(北约战斗机飞行员称其为“熊”) 飞越欧洲最繁忙的民用航空线路之一并关闭了应答器，这意味着，它们只能被雷达监测到， 但不显示在常规空中交通管制系统中。 The UK’s air traffic controller, Nats, was forced to re-route commercial flights as a result. The decision was a “precautionary measure,” a government official said. 英 国空管机构Nats被迫因此更改民用航空航班的线路。一政府官员表示，这一决定是一种“预 防措施”。 The bombers — whose distinctive outline once made them one of the most recognisable symbols of the cold war — were initially intercepted by Norwegian fighters after taking off from Russia. They flew south from Norway over the North Sea towards UK airspace, continuing down the Channel and then along France’s Atlantic coast. 这两架轰炸机的 外形独特，曾是冷战时期最容易识别的标志之一。这两架轰炸机从俄罗斯起飞后，起初遭到 挪威战斗机的拦截，然后它们从挪威向南飞行，越过北海飞向英国领空，并继续飞向英吉利 海峡，沿法国大西洋海岸飞行。 Nato countries saw a threefold increase in provocative Russian activity in the skies last year. In Britain, RAF fighters have had to be scrambled once a month on average since tensions with Moscow began to rise. 去年，俄罗斯在北约国家上空的挑衅行为增加了3倍。自从 与俄罗斯紧张关系开始加剧以来，英国皇家空军战斗机不得不平均每月紧急起飞一次。 Jock Lowe, a former head of flight operations at British Airways, said the incident over the Channel this week was a marked departure from the tactics of the Soviet air force at the height of the cold war. 英国航空(British Airways)前飞行任务主管乔克•罗威(Jock Lowe)表示，本周发生在英吉利海峡上空的事件与前苏联空军在冷战白热化时期的策略明显 不同。 In the 1970s and 1980s, Tu-95 long-range bombers would test UK air defence over the North Sea, often performing dummy bombing runs but they did not come as far south as the Channel. 上世纪70年代和80年代，图-95远程轰炸机会在北海上空测试英国的空 中防御，通常是进行模拟轰炸飞行，但从未飞到像英吉利海峡这么靠南的地区。 Despite a bulked-up Nato fighter mission in the Baltic and countries such as the UK being on a state of high alert for Russian incursions, the Kremlin has shown little indication that it will scale back its activities. 尽管北约战斗机对俄罗斯入侵高度警惕，在巴尔干半岛 和英国等国的任务增加，但俄罗斯几乎没有将减少此类活动的迹象。 President Vladimir Putin reinstated long-range patrols of nuclear-capable bombers in 2007 and has significantly increased the regularity and scale of their manoeuvres of late. 俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)在2007年恢复了可携带核弹头的轰炸机的远程 巡航，而且最近大大增加了此类巡航的频率和规模。