FIGHTER pilots from the North were scrambled to intercept eight Russian military aircraft which were approaching British airspace.

It was the latest in a series of incidents this summer in which British fighters have been used to warn off long-range Russian reconnaissance aircraft.

The four Tornado F3 fighters were launched from RAF Leeming, near Northallerton, in North Yorkshire and RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire in the early hours of yesterday morning, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said.

They intercepted and turned back eight Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bear aircraft, which were approaching, but not in British airspace, he said.

Vladimir Putins Russia has returned to the Cold War tactic of sending military planes towards Nato airspace on several occasions in recent months.

The tactic reflects heightened tension between Russia and the West over issues including US President George Bushs decision to position missile defence bases in the Czech Republic and Poland and Britains demand for the extradition of the suspected killer of Alexander Litvinenko.

Last month, two of the RAFs new Typhoon Eurofighter jets were used to intercept and turn back a single Bear over the north Atlantic, and in July two Russian aircraft were warned off by RAF jets as they headed towards UK airspace.

In May, two Tornado F3s were scrambled from RAF Leuchars in Scotland to intercept a Tu-95 observing the Royal Navy exercise Neptune Warrior.

Norway scrambled four of its F-16 jet fighters to shadow the eight Russian planes in the Arctic in yesterdays incident, Norwegian armed forces spokesman Lt Col John Inge Oegland said.

He said that the Bears flew in international airspace from the Barents Sea - which lies between Russias northern coastline and the Arctic - to the Atlantic, then turned back.

The Tu-95 Bear is a propellor-driven long-range aircraft developed by the Soviet Union as a strategic bomber and missile carrier during the Cold War but now often used for surveillance missions.