This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Batchelor.

Russian military aircraft again tested North American defenses,

even as Moscow steps up incursions across Eastern Europe.

According to the Joint U.S. Canada North American Airspace Defense Command, Norad,

two Russian TU95 heavy bombers, and two SU35 fighter jets, entered the Alaskan air

defense identification zone.

Stopping there, noting that the U.S. met them with F-16s, E3, airborne, and a KC-135 tanker.

I welcome my colleague, General Blaine Holt, United States Air Force, retired, helping me to understand these ballet dances in the air by very, very, very expensive machinery, warplanes,

and very well-trained pilots.

What is to be done?

Blaine, a very good evening to you.

The TU.95, I remember from the old Cold War days.

I believe that was the one that was going to threaten the United States as early as the 1960s. However,

SU35, I think that's high end. Good evening to you. Good evening. Yes, you've got it exactly right.

You would think of the TU95 on par with our B-52. They both come out of the same eras and they've

been updated all along the ways. It is a

bomb truck. But the SU 35, that is higher end Russian kit. That is a very capable fighter aircraft.

Certainly our F-22 pilots in Alaska don't quake at the sound of an SU35 coming. But the message is very clear.

Russia is probing our defenses, seeing how we react,

and they're sending a message that they're very dissatisfied with how things,

all things, diplomacy in Ukraine are shaping up.

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