Air Force Jets Intercept 4 Russian Aircraft Off Alaska: NORAD: NORAD has announced Tuesday that it scrambled jets to intercept four inbound Russian military aircraft near American airspace off Alaska the day prior. "The Alaskan Region of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected, tracked, positively identified and intercepted four Russian aircraft entering and operating within the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Feb.13, 2023," an official statement reads. The response included a pair of US F-16 fighter jets, assisted by two more F-35A fighters, an E-3 Sentry, and two KC-135 Stratotankers, all of which were sent to intercept the Russian aircraft, which included among the the four aircraft a Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear" long range bomber and SU-35 fighter jet. But interestingly, NORAD called the incident "routine" - given it has happened an estimated six to seven times a year on average over the past decade or more. Additionally, no breach of actual US airspace was reported by the Russian planes, just the outlying ADIZ. "Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace. This Russian activity in the North American ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat, nor is the activity seen as provocative," the statement continued. However, currently, there are heightened tensions with Russia related to the Ukraine war, but also given the unusual spate of 'unidentified object' shootdowns by US fighters over the last week - two of which were in far northern regions, including northeastern Alaska and Canada's Yukon territory. https://www.zerohedge.com/military/air-force-jets-intercept-4-russian-aircraft-alaska-norad Biden Administration Spent over $1.6M Shooting Down What May Be $12 Hobby Balloons: President Joe Biden on Thursday addressed the nation for the first time on the spate of shoot-downs of objects by the United States military over the past two weeks — four shoot-downs in total involving a Chinese spy balloon and three additional still-unknown objects. “A small, globe-trotting balloon declared ‘missing in action’ by an Illinois-based hobbyist club on Feb. 15 has emerged as a candidate to explain one of the three mystery objects shot down by four heat-seeking missiles launched by U.S. Air Force fighters since Feb. 10,” Aviation Week reported. The outlet said the club’s balloon — a “silver-coated, party-style, ‘pico balloon'” — was last seen on Feb. 10 at 38,910 feet off the west coast of Alaska. That was the same day Biden ordered an F-22 fighter jet to shoot down an object at around that altitude in that area. In fact, the outlet reported, the descriptions of all of the three still-unidentified objects that were shot down after the Chinese spy balloon “match the shapes, altitudes and payloads of the small pico balloons, which can usually be purchased for $12-180 each, depending on the type.” The military has acknowledged it used AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles to shoot down each object. Each missile costs around $400,000. One object required two missiles after the first one missed, bringing the total cost of shooting down the three objects to more than $1,600,000. Those costs do not include operating labor and fuel costs for operating the F-22s, or other aircraft involved in the shoot-downs. Operating costs for F-22s are $85,325 an hour, according to Popular Mechanics. The costs also do not include recovery operations, which have been ongoing for days in three different locations.