TYPHOON fighter pilots have not been sent up to defend British airspace from Russian aircraft once during the past six months.

The fighter jets, based at RAF Coningsby, have not been called into action at all since April this year – despite Russian bombers continuing to probe British air defences.

The Ministry of Defence revealed it decided not to scramble Lincolnshire's Typhoon fighters to intercept a Tu-160 Blackjack bomber in a recent incident.

An MoD spokesman said: "Our air defence capability to detect aircraft approaching UK airspace is one defensive layer and we can launch as many aircraft as the situation requires."

Early this year and in the latter half of last year Typhoons had chased massive Soviet-era aircraft thought to be carrying live nuclear cruise missiles out of UK airspace 28 times in seven months – almost once a week.

This came when Anglo-Russian relations were at their lowest point since the Cold War.

The MoD confirmed: "There has not been one launch in the past six months to intercept Russian aircraft."

Tupolev Tu-95MS Bear-H and Tu-160 Blackjack bombers are capable of launching several Kh-55 Granat missiles equipped with 200 kiloton nuclear warheads – 10 times more powerful than the weapon that devastated Hiroshima during the Second World War.