Two Russian bombers have been caught circling the US island of Guam in a 'highly unusual' move some are claiming shows President Vladimir Putin's growing strategic assertiveness towards America.

The aircraft - Russian Tu-95 Bear-H bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons - flew over the western Pacific island just hours before Obama's state of the union address on Tuesday and were intercepted by Air Force F-15 jets.

Officials insisted the surprise training mission 'stayed professional' and said it was unclear whether the bombers were equipped with nuclear missiles. The bombers remained in international air space, they said.

Bombers: Two Russian Tu-95 Bear-H bombers, like that pictured, flew over the western Pacific island of Guam just hours before Obama's state of the union address on Tuesday and were intercepted by Air Force F-15 jets

Air Force Capt. Kim Bender, a spokeswoman for the Pacific Air Force in Hawaii, told The Washington Free Beacon that the F-15s based on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, 'scrambled and responded to the aircraft.'

'The Tu-95s were intercepted and left the area in a northbound direction. No further actions occurred,' she said, refusing to release any other details for security reasons.

The Russian planes were tracked by US long-range radars and satellites as they took off from northeastern Russia.

Highly unusual: The training mission, which took place over Guam, pictured, was 'highly unusual but not unprecedented' officials said

apan also rushed to send up fighter jets to intercept the aircraft as the bombers passed over Japanese airspace but did not enter it.

A US official told NBC News the fly-over 'wasn’t provocative but it certainly got our attention.'

Former U.N. ambassador and former State Department international security undersecretary John Bolton told the Free Beacon that the Russian bomber flights appeared to be part of a new tack Moscow was taking in response to President Obama's anti-nuclear policies.


New tack: The training exercise some are claiming shows President Vladimir Putin's growing strategic assertiveness towards America

Unnamed defense officials told the newspaper that the bombers were probably equipped with six Kh-55 or Kh-55SM cruise missiles that can hit targets up to 1,800 miles away with either a high-explosive warhead or a 200-kiloton nuclear warhead.

However, the Air Force didn't confirm that the bombers were in fact armed.

NBC reported officials saying the act was 'not unprecedented' however the Free Beacon wrote that Russian strategic bombers were not known to have conducted such operations in the past from the nation's bases in the Russian Far East, which is thousands of miles away and over water.

The trip requires 'multiple refueling,' according to NBC.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...pace-Guam.html