South Korea Scrambles Fighters as China and Russia Push Bomber Run Into KADIZ

Nine Chinese and Russian military aircraft briefly entered South Korea’s air defense identification zone on prompting Seoul to scramble fighter jets as a precautionary response, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, as reported by Defence Blog on December 9.

According to the JCS, two Chinese aircraft and seven Russian planes—including bombers and fighters—entered the Korea Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ) in sequence around 10 a.m. local time, flying over waters east and south of the peninsula.

South Korea stressed that the foreign aircraft did not breach sovereign airspace but entered the early-warning buffer where identifying yourself is standard procedure to avoid military miscalculations. “We detected the aircraft before they entered the KADIZ,” the JCS said.

The aircraft reportedly remained intermittently in the zone for about an hour before exiting, while the South Korean Air Force deployed fighter jets to track the formation and maintain readiness for any escalation.

Unlike territorial airspace, the KADIZ is not internationally recognized, but it is used for air traffic control and early warning, particularly in a region crowded with competing military operations.

The JCS noted these joint movements are not new—China and Russia have conducted annual or semiannual joint patrols since 2019, often without prior notice. The last similar incident occurred in November 2024, when 11 aircraft from both countries entered the KADIZ together.

According to the Defence Blog, the latest patrol comes amid deepening military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow in Northeast Asia, where joint bomber flights frequently overlap South Korean and Japanese air defense zones, triggering rapid response deployments and diplomatic protests.

Earlier, Poland briefly placed its Patriot air defense systems at Rzeszów-Jasionka airport on high alert in response to the movement of four Russian MiG-31 fighter jets flying westward over the Baltic Sea while remaining in Russian airspace.

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