After Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected to Japan in his new MiG-25, top brass had ordered that the fuel tanks of all planes be filled only halfway, so that pilots would have enough fuel only to return to their own bases. The generals in their meeting rooms intended that a Soviet pilot making a bid to escape would not have enough fuel to reach foreign territory. From then on, the distance and flight times of the fighter interceptors were determined, not by mission requirements, but by the desire to ensure that pilots would come back, as stipulated and prescribed in this oh so smart order.
The result was that pilots became concerned first and foremost not with planes violating Soviet airspace, not with their missions, and not with the targets that they were supposed to intercept, but with
