Video shows Russian fighter jet in 'unsafe' maneuver just feet from US Air Force F-16

The U.S. military released video of an extremely close encounter between a U.S. Air Force jet and Russian military aircraft in the skies near Alaska on Monday.

The footage was taken on Sept. 23, when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) "Detected and tracked four Russian military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)," according to a statement from NORAD.

The ADIZ "begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security," according to NATO, and it is where U.S. and Russian military aircraft have routinely come into contact with each other.

Watch close call in air between Russia, US fighter jets

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'Unsafe, unprofessional, and endangered all'

The video released on Monday, taken from an Air Force F-16, shows the U.S. aircraft flying near a Russian Tu-95 aircraft. A second Russian jet, identified as a Su-35, then darts between the F-16 and the Tu-95, coming within just a few feet of the Air Force jet.

"The conduct of one Russian Su-35 was unsafe, unprofessional, and endangered all – not what you’d see in a professional air force," the commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, Gen. Gregory Guillot, said.

The "unsafe" encounter comes just a couple of months after Russian and Chinese aircraft were intercepted in the ADIZ while operating together for the first time.

Max Hauptman is a Trending Reporter for USA TODAY. He can be reached at MHauptman@gannett.com