US strategic drone conducts reconnaissance flight off Russian Black Sea coast
An American RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance drone flew close to the Russian border over the Black Sea. The drone’s flight route was published by the CivMilAir aircraft tracking application, Interfax reports.
According to the application, the drone flew over the conflict area in the Donbas, looped over Crimea at a latitude of approximately 16 km, and then flew in the direction of Sochi.
Another American RC-135W reconnaissance UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) flew close to Kaliningrad oblast in the air space over the Baltic states, as recorded by the Mil Radar tracking app.
The drone took off from the Mildenhall air base in the United Kingdom and headed towards the Baltic Sea. It flew along the Kaliningrad and Pskov oblasts while in the airspace over Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia and, having reached Tallinn, made a u-turn and flew back.
NATO reconnaissance drones regularly make flights near the western borders of Russia, in the Kaliningrad oblast, and the Crimea. On January 8th, a Swedish Gulfstream 4, tail number 102003, flew past Kaliningrad several times. On Christmas, January 7th, a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane from the U.S. Naval Forces took off from the Sigonella naval air base in Sicily and flew alongside the coastline of the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula.