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mfcorey1

(11,001 posts) Fri Nov 13, 2020, 08:27 AM Nov 2020

'Are We Getting Invaded?' U.S. Boats Faced Russian Aggression Near Alaska

The New York Times logo ‘Are We Getting Invaded?’ U.S. Boats Faced Russian Aggression Near Alaska

ANCHORAGE — The crew of the Bristol Leader was laying out its long cod-catching line well within U.S. fishing territory in the Bering Sea when a voice crackled over the VHF radio and began issuing commands: The ship was in danger, it said, and needed to move.

The warnings, coming in a mixture of Russian and accented English from a plane buzzing overhead, grew more specific and more urgent. There was a submarine nearby, the voice said. Missiles were being fired. Leave the area.

Other U.S. fishing vessels that were scattered over 100 miles of open sea were getting similar messages. Capt. Steve Elliott stood dumbfounded on the trawler Vesteraalen as three Russian warships came barreling through, barking orders of their own. On the ship Blue North, commands from a Russian plane led Capt. David Anderson to contact the U.S. Coast Guard, wondering how to protect his crew of 27.

“It was frightening, to say the least,” Captain Anderson said. “The Coast Guard’s response was: Just do what they say.”

The Russian military operations in August inside the U.S. economic zone off the coast of Alaska were the latest in a series of escalated encounters across the North Pacific and the Arctic, where the retreat of polar ice continues to draw new commercial and military traffic. This year, the Russian military has driven a new nuclear-powered icebreaker straight to the North Pole, dropped paratroopers into a high-Arctic archipelago to perform a mock battle and repeatedly flown bombers to the edge of U.S. airspace.

As seas warmed by climate change open new opportunities for oil exploration and trade routes, the U.S. Coast Guard now finds itself monitoring a range of new activity: cruise ships promising a voyage through waters few have ever seen, research vessels trying to understand the changing landscape, tankers carrying new gas riches, and shipping vessels testing new passageways that sailors of centuries past could only dream of.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/are-we-getting-invaded-us-boats-faced-russian-aggression-near-alaska/ar-BB1aXvw7?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBnb7Kz
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