A large fleet of Russian and Chinese naval ships patrolled near the Alaskan coast in an unprecedented move last week, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. “It is a historical first,” Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a retired Navy captain, told the Journal. “Given the context of the war in Ukraine and tensions around Taiwan, this move is highly provocative.” U.S. officials confirmed the patrol, which was shadowed by U.S. military destroyers and aircraft, but said that it was never considered a threat since the flotilla never entered American waters. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) of the Armed Services Committee called the act “another reminder that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators in Beijing and Moscow.”
