Russian bomber flight "right out of" Putin's playbook

The Royal Air Force scrambled two typhoon fighter jets as Britain found itself battling Russian close encounters on two fronts.

According to political analyst Cliff Kupchan, there's little doubt the blatant provocation comes right out of the playbook of Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata.

"He likes to fly these old bombers over Western Europe, again, to rattle cages, to make people worry, to make people worry that he might undermine west European and central European political stability in some way," Kupchan said. "So it's really an exercise of muscle flexing more than anything else."

The British warplanes intercepted two Russian "Bear" bombers that were skirting close to British airspace, reports CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata.

Hours before, a heavily armed Russian destroyer and two support ships sailed from the Mediterranean through the English Channel.

The British navy deployed a war ship, the HMS Argyll, off the coast of Plymouth to monitor the Russian ships as they passed.

Both incidents came as British forces hosted NATO war games involving more than 50 ships and submarines from 14 countries.

For Putin, flexing muscle, military or otherwise, has proven a strategy that plays well at home.

When British and French fighter jets were scrambled in a similar incident, Russian TV showed the pilots point of view flaunting the fighters just off their wingtips.

And earlier in April, a U.S. reconnaissance plane was intercepted by a Russian jet in over Poland in what the pentagon called 'unsafe and unprofessional' maneuvers.

A reminder, if not a serious military threat yet, that in Putin's world, Russia is still a global superpower with global reach.

"I think this is going to be standard operating procedure for Russia as long as he's around, and he's not going anywhere," Kupchan said.

In January, Britain summoned the Russian ambassador to explain why Russian bombers were flying over the English Channel. They had to reroute civilian aircraft because of it.

A statement from the Russian Embassy in London said, "This is a panicked reaction to a routine Russian Navy ship passing through the channel and proves that some people are disconnected from reality."