They sure weren't gathering intelligence over Washington.

The Open Skies regulations covers the territory over which the parties exercise sovereignty, including mainland, islands, and internal and territorial waters. The treaty specifies that the entire territory of a member state is open to observation. Observation flights may only be restricted for reasons of flight safety and not for reasons of national security.

Open Skies Treaty was finally ratified in 2002. Not exactly new news.

The Tu-154 was grounded in Russia following a crash last year. This aircraft was probably a Tu-155. On the other hand, according to Wikipedia, the Tu-154 is still in service in North Korea!
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154

What? Russians can fly over DC but I cannot fly into National without a babysitter on board?

"Comrade, since we already here let's go to Oshkosh! Sorry Boris it was in July!"

I assume we are allowed the same access to Russian airspace?

"Sites" not sights!

I think they were looking for aa good Russian Restaurant for Putin when he visits.

I spent 20 years in the Air Force, the majority of that time was in the B52 as bombardier & navigator and the rest of the time working on the highly classified B-1 and Advanced Cruise Missile development programs. My point being that I've had intelligence and information security hammered into me until it's part of my DNA, even 22 years after retirement!

For that reason, this quote (from the article) by Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt Jeff Davis is simply stunning to me..."We have to remember that while we have pretty good intelligence on a lot of the world, a lot of other countries don't necessarily have that great of intelligence on us. So, in the interest of transparency and miscalculation on their part, sometimes it's worthwhile to allow them to have a look at what you're doing or what you're not doing."

So, now it appears that in the realm of our national security, we must now practice "intelligence equality" so as not to make our adversaries feel somehow inferior... that they don't measure up to our level and quality of intelligence gathering. Unbelievable!!

Was this one of those FA restricted flights?

What about the satellites?
Those Russians seem to be looking to start WW3 or WW4 before whatever happens with North Korea.

A Tu-154! Really? They've been grounded since the Dec 2016 crash that wiped out most of the Red Army Choir. And what would that achieve anyway? More likely to have been a Tu-95 Bear or its Tu-142 equivalent if it was "collecting intelligence". In any event, this was just a "sabre rattling" stunt by the Russians because they could under the terms of the Open Skies Treaty. It goes on all the time with commercial aircraft. Of course they use their satellites for serious spying. The US does the same. It's just political jousting. (BTW, I'm in Australia and we tend not to engage in these sort of shenanigans).

Really Capital Police monitor air traffic? That's a crock. They get info from FAA & DND.

Not much of a secret if everyone knows you're there???

I wonder how that works out by Area 51.

Please read the article before commenting. Jeez.

Maybe they're just dropping off a bottle of "Wodka" for 'the Donald'...

hahahahahahahahahahahahahah....this world is NUTS!!!!!

What on earth were they thinking with this?

I don't understand the concept. What are all those billion dollar satellites for. It's not like a building is going to get up and move. And to simply fly over and not into is a waste of fuel. I guess they were tourists on military planes.

Did they forget their Google password and couldn't use Google maps?

Why would any country have ICBM to deliver a weapon when you could just deliver it with a surveillance plane.

This sounds like a non issue ment to scare the public more about russia. Would the us military just let a spy plane waltz right in and do nothing? No way. Fake news

Has Trump thanked Putin for his iinterest in our nation's capital just as he did for expelling our embassy personnel in Moscow?