South Korea shoots at Russian planes

South Korean air force jets fired 360 rounds of warning shots on Tuesday after a Russian aircraft entered the airspace of a disputed island off the coast of South Korea and Japan, officials said in a statement. South Korea said it was the first time a foreign military plane had violated its airspace since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s. The Japanese Ministry of Defense supported the report, saying it scrambled fighters to intercept the planes. Japan protested to Russia for violating the airspace but also said South Korea firing warning shots was “absolutely unacceptable.”

The Russian Defense Ministry in a statement said its planes did not enter South Korean airspace. It disputed that South Korea fired any warning shots but accused the pilots of flying too close to its own aircraft in “unprofessional maneuvers.”

South Korean presidential national security adviser Chung Eui-yong told top Russian security official Nikolai Patrushev that South Korea will take “much stronger” measures if a similar incident occurs.