According to reports, a RQ-4B Global Hawk, a strategic unmanned aerial vehicle of the United States Air Force, conducted an 11-hour reconnaissance flight near Russian borders in the Baltic region.
The United States Air Force RC-135U reconnaissance aircraft made a multi-hour flight along the Russian coast in the Black Sea, according to the PlaneRadar flight tracking website.
The plane, which took off from the Souda Bay air base on the Greek island of Crete on Thursday, flew over the Krasnodar coast, as well as the south and southwest coast of Crimea.
The plane flew for at least three hours southwest of Crimea, near the city of Sevastopol.
“The Boeing RC-135U aircraft performs a reconnaissance flight along the Russian Black Sea coast,” reads the tweet.
According to reports, the flight took place over the international waters of the Black Sea at an altitude of 9,600 meters.
PlaneRadar also tracked a flight of the RC-135W spy plane of the Royal United Kingdom Air Force near the Russian borders in the Baltic.
“The Boeing RC-135W aircraft performs a reconnaissance flight in the area of flight information in the Kaliningrad region,” according to a tweet.
After taking off Thursday from the RAF Waddington air base in England, the plane conducted a surveillance mission over the Baltic Sea in Lithuanian airspace near the borders of the Russian Kaliningrad region.
The overflights occur after PlaneRadar reported an almost 11-hour reconnaissance flight by the US RQ-4B Global Hawk drone near Russian borders in the Baltic region.
The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) took off from Sigonella air base in Sicily and then flew along the northern border of the Kaliningrad region, as well as the western borders of the Russian regions of Pskov and Leningrad.
“The UAV RQ-4B-40 Global Hawk with the license plate number 11-2048 and the code FORTE15 took off from the Sigonella air base,” reads the tweet.
The United States and NATO have substantially increased their reconnaissance operations along Russia’s borders in the Black and Baltic seas in recent years.
Over the past year alone, the reconnaissance forces of the Russian army tracked around 3,000 foreign fighter jets, including around 1,000 spy planes and reconnaissance drones, which flew near the maritime and land borders of Russia.
During the same period, Russian planes were repeatedly scrambled to intercept the plane, forcing them to change course.
Source: Newsfront
