New military video footage released Monday has revealed that a Russian fighter jet recklessly careened past a U.S. Air Force F-16 with just feet to spare near Alaska last week. The event has only heightened tensions between the two countries, as a series of incidents in recent weeks has seen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime escalate its level of aggression toward the U.S. in the midst of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

The encounter, which happened off the coast of Alaska inside the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), occurred just outside of U.S. airspace. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had ordered an F-16, which flew “a safe and disciplined” route according to NORAD commander Gen. Gregory Guillot, to intercept the Russian aircraft. “The conduct of one Russian Su-35 was unsafe, unprofessional, and endangered all — not what you’d see in a professional air force,” he added.

The incursion was merely the latest in a series of such events carried out by Russian aircraft in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone in recent months. As noted by the Associated Press, the close encounter “comes just weeks after eight Russian military planes and four of its navy vessels, including two submarines, came close to Alaska as China and Russia conducted joint drills.” In addition, Russian and Chinese bombers carried out a joint flight for the first time in international airspace near Alaska in July. And two years prior, a Coast Guard ship discovered four Russian and three Chinese naval vessels sailing in single formation 85 miles north of Alaska’s Kiska Island in the Bering Sea.

In response to last week’s incident, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee member Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) contended that the U.S. military should increase its presence in Alaska and the surrounding Arctic region. “The reckless and unprofessional maneuvers of Russian fighter pilots — within just a few feet of our Alaska-based fighters — in Alaska’s ADIZ on September 23 put the lives of our brave Airmen at risk and underscore the escalating aggression we’re witnessing from dictators like Vladimir Putin,” he said in a statement.

Lt. Col. (Ret.) Bob Maginnis, senior fellow for National Security at Family Research Council, contends that there is no question that Putin’s intensifying hostility toward the U.S. is in response to ongoing American military aid being supplied to Ukraine.

“There is no doubt that President Putin is signaling to the West and especially the U.S. that we ought to back off regarding support for Ukraine, especially in light of [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky’s visit here this past week and his effort to sell the Biden-Harris administration his ‘Victory Plan’ over Russia,” he told The Washington Stand.

“The escalating tension with both Russia and China is a geopolitical game of chicken,” Maginnis continued. “The increased near-misses and approaches to U.S. and NATO territories tests our sensors off of Alaska and in the Baltic region.”

As he went on to observe, Putin’s announcement last week that he is proposing a new doctrine that would expand the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine is “yet another sign” of Putin’s saber-rattling tactics.

“The updated doctrine increases the list of threats that could warrant a nuclear response,” Maginnis explained. “Specifically, Russia would consider any aggression by a ‘non-nuclear state’ such as Ukraine that was backed by a ‘nuclear state’ such as the United States as a ‘joint attack,’ which could elicit a nuclear response. Putin elaborated the doctrine could allow the deployment of nuclear assets if the Kremlin received ‘reliable information’ that a ‘massive launch of attack vehicles’ had entered Russia. He defined those vehicles as ‘strategic or tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic and other aircraft.’”

“However, Russia is unlikely to use nuclear weapons as long as the Ukraine war continues and Putin maintains dominating leverage over Kyiv,” he surmised. “Of course, that could change if Zelensky’s ‘Victory Plan’ violates Putin’s conditions and Russia’s initiative is lost and the regime is seriously threatened, which at this point appears unlikely.”

Meanwhile, 130 U.S. soldiers were deployed to the remote Alaskan island of Shemya in mid-September with mobile rocket launchers in response to the increased Russian military activity. They were reportedly sent home after a week of military exercises. Maginnis noted that the deployment showed that “we are concerned that either Russia and or China may try to compromise or seize that island much like the Japanese seized Attu in 1942.”