Russia to Fly Bombers Near U.S.; Putin's Next Move
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. Also in our world lead, growing tensions in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin is accused of yet again raising the stakes in his Cold War era chess match with the West. Ukrainian officials said Thursday that more Russian troops and artillery have been moved across the border in preparation for heavy fighting and they claim an attack from Moscow is imminent. Russia's foreign minister denied the allegation and questioned Kiev's commitment to the cease-fire. That cease-fire from September has been violated almost daily with clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian troops. More than 4,000 people have been killed since the fighting began. For more on this growing tension, we turn to CNN's chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. Jim, what's the latest on Russia's movements along or across the Ukrainian border? And is there actually any intelligence to suggest that a Russian attack is imminent?</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, first, in the movements, there is intelligence to show that. There are satellite photos, et cetera. But what is interesting, and you just showed that video from YouTube, that there's open-source intelligence in effect that shows these Russian heavy weapons moving across the video, as you can see right there. From the Ukrainian perspective, when I speak to Ukrainian officials, it's their view that the reason these Russian weapons are going in now is to prepare and arm the pro-Russian separatists for a major offensive inside Eastern Ukraine. And they are connecting the dots both on the Russian weapons coming across the border in the east, but also the activity in Crimea in the south. It's their view that they are doing a sort of panzer movement, showing Ukrainian forces that they have them outflanked.</s>TAPPER: What's the word on the movement of Russian fighters, Russian vessels to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean? Which means they'd be flying quite close to the U.S. Is there a reaction from the Pentagon?</s>SCIUTTO: There is a reaction. The general position of the Pentagon is this -- it's not where you fly. It's how you fly. Because it is understood that in international airspace, it's OK, our jets do it and their jets do it as well. The thing is, how they have flown recently has been much more provocative. The formations have changed. Where they might have been a couple of planes, now, there are four bombers flying with refuelers. There have also been cases in Europe where Russian bombers, because they are not flying with transponders, get into civilian air space, and there was a near miss with a civilian aircraft over Denmark. So, that kind of stuff that makes them nervous. This latest step of taking the flight -- saying that you're going to take the flights over the Caribbean is, the view of the White House is, listen, there's no excuse for that. There's no training or security reason to have Russian aircraft that close to the U.S. They call that move provocative and destabilizing.</s>TAPPER: Provocative and destabilizing. All right. Let's talk more about these Russian flights since Russia essentially annexed Crimea earlier this year. NATO and other European countries have noticed and worried about an uptick in Russian military jets violating their air space, simulating attack runs, conducting mock bombing runs, much more, including that near collision in March with the Swedish passenger plane, with 132 onboard that Jim just talked about. Those incidents are documented in a new report out of Europe titled "Dangerous Brinksmanship: Close Military Encounters Between Russia and the West in 2014." CNN's Tom Foreman has been digging into this. He joins us from the magic wall -- Tom.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake. Take a look at these black dots that we're showing here. This report shows 40 encounters over the past eight months have rattled nerves and raised tensions to a Cold War level. You mentioned the close call that Jim mentioned as well between a passenger jet and Russian jet along in here. But there are many others from the Russians. They staged a simulated bombing attack on a Danish island, Russian jet made threatening movements towards a U.S. reconnaissance plane, including showing that it was fully armed with missiles, Russian planes have buzzed ships. And they even out in this area practiced a cruise missile strike within range of New York, Washington, and Chicago -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: Tom, how close have any of these incidents been to the United States or American troops?</s>FOREMAN: Well, if you look up here on the northern part near Alaska and Canada, September 6th, Russian jets were spotted up in this area. Russia is suggesting we'll have full radar surveillance of this area by year's end. That is not really that uncommon up there. But in June, four Russian planes were coming down along the coast here within 200 miles. Two of them went all the way down here to within 50 miles of the coast of California. That's the closest that they've been since the Cold War. They were intercepted by U.S. F-15s. That's just short of U.S. airspace. Such incursions are not unheard of but they're becoming more common and this was the closest one in two years -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: What kind of planes are we talking about? What kind of planes do the Russians even have in their arsenal for these types of flights?</s>FOREMAN: For some missions, Russia is using fighter jets along with refueling planes as Jim just mentioned. But the big piece of equipment on the scene is this. It's the Tupolev 95, nicknamed the "Bear" by NATO. This plane grew out of the Cold War in the 1950s, way back then. It's a turbo prop, so it looks antique compared to modern bombers like the Stealth. But it's a serious weapon. Just take a look at the things that it has going for it. If you're going to this plane, you have a maximum speed of almost 600 miles an hour. It has a range for missions of well over 5,000 miles. It can carry 11 tons of ordinates, including cruise missiles and nukes. And like U.S. long range bombers, it is designed for big impact precision strikes -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: Tom Foreman, thank you so much. When we come back -- protesters setting cars ablaze after 43 students are murdered, allegedly on orders from a mayor and his wife. And now, tourists are canceling trips as violence picks up very close to one particular resort area. Plus, record shattered as a huge part of the country starts dealing with temperatures 43 degrees below normal. And there's even more bad news if you were hoping for a warm up any time soon.