NATO accuses Russia of engaging in disinformation on a daily basis, but the London Times, this week, was caught engaging in a bit of disinformation of its own, just a week before the NATO summit. On June 7, The Times published a story on Russian bomber flights over the Irish Sea in March 2020 with the following headline: “Concerns Raised Over Russian Military Aircraft Flying in Irish Airspace.” It claimed that “The Irish Aviation Authority has raised the issue of incursions by foreign military aircraft into Irish airspace in its submission to the Commission on the Future of the Defense Forces.”
Except that it’s not true that Russian aircraft flew into Irish airspace. Steffan Watkins, who describes himself as an “open source research consultant focused on debunking #misinfo|#disinfo about planes, ships, & #OpenSkiesTreaty,” thoroughly debunked The Times story in a series of Twitter postings. The Russian aircraft, four maritime patrol and communications relay aircraft, along with a pair of Tu-160 long-range bombers were seen over the Irish Sea over a period of a few days. Watkins reports that they were never in Irish airspace, which extends 12 miles out from the coast and were instead operating in what is known in air traffic control parlance as the Flight Information Region (FIR), an area of international airspace under the control of Irish air traffic control that extends out from land for hundreds of miles. NATO and Irish Defense Force officials believe that the Russian aircraft were attempting to communicate with a Russian submarine that was either in, or passing through the Irish Sea.
