The BBC reports that Putin's Kremlin is pressing ahead with its plan to alienate and provoke every single country on the planet, leaving Russia utterly alone in the world

Japan responded by scrambling 22 jets and lodging an official protest with the Russian embassy. But a spokesman for the Russian air force denied any incursion into Japanese airspace had occurred. Alexander Drobyshevsky told Russia's Itar-Tass news agency that strategic bomber flights had been "carried out in strict accordance with international rules on flying over neutral waters, without violating the border between the two countries.