ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE
The US intensified its Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) presence in the Black Sea after the incident between a Ukrainian naval group and Russian coastal guards near the Kerch Strait, an analysis by the Aviationist showed.
Following the incident on the morning of November 25th, the US increased the presence of airborne assets in the Black Sea region. In the days following the incident, the US dispatched ISR aircraft from both the US Air Force and Navy to monitor the situation on the ground and the movement of personnel and equipment.
Specifically, the US used the maritime surveillance aircraft P-8A Poseidon and RQ-4 Global Hawk UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) from Naval Air Station Sigonella (Sicily, Italy) in addition to a RC-135 Rivet Joint and EP-3E ARIES II electronic reconnaissance aircraft from Souda Bay (Crete, Greece).
Earlier, it was reported that Russia sent an Su-25 attack aircraft and Ka-52 combat helicopters to the Crimean bridge, following the incident. Presence of any other aircraft in the area was unknown. US reconnaissance aircraft routinely operates over the Black Sea and they are often intercepted by Russian aircraft. However, from November 26th onwards the US Air Force has kept a significant presence in the Black Sea and Crimea area.
The analysis is based on various public domain sources and estimates based on time, speed and position. It further leverages on the contribution of sources from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, forums and various other social and private networks, who provided additional details, logs and hints.
The below table provides all US ISR flights identified in the area between November 26th and December 5th:
IMAGE: theaviationist.com
The list highlights the variety of movements and airborne assets that were utilized over the area. Most of the flights, and especially RQ-4 ones had a repetitive character in the days that followed in terms of routing.
The routes are along Russia’s sovereign airspace, which as per international law spans 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) from its coastline.
The main track was deduced by studying the movements of US reconnaissance aircraft covers the entire area around the southern part of Crimea and is approximately 450 nautical miles in length and in a form that provides the ability the monitor the entire area from different angles. All aircraft that were confirmed to be in the area used the track, partially or in full. The route has been simplified and the waypoints have been designated as WEST, EAST, SOUTH.
IMAGE: theaviationist.com
In the night between November 25th and 26th a Sigonella-based RQ-4 UAV was launched as FORTE10. Its flight lasted 21 hours and its route looked the following way:
IMAGE: theaviationist.com
IMAGE: theaviationist.com
Simultaneously while FORTE10 was flying, a RC-135 Rivet Joint with callsign JONAS21 departed around 05.00AM on a Black Sea mission. It flew through Bulgarian airspace.
“Although the “Bulgarian route” is a significant diversion from the most direct route to the Black Sea, it presumably serves one main goal: to avoid the Turkish airspace.”
JONAS21 made passes along the track and some intermediate holding patterns, mainly along the western part of Crimea. Its flight lasted 8 hours and its route was the following:
While JONAS21 was on station, over at NAS Sigonella, a USN Boeing P-8A Poseidon departed as “PS266” before 12.00PM. It followed the same route as JONAS21, there are no records of its movements near Crimea, but it remained in the area for about 5 hours before returning to Italy.
Its route was the following:
IMAGE: theaviationist.com
On November 27th, FORTE10, similarly it made its way to western Ukraine, by passing over Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. It spent several hours patrolling above Ukraine, then it was spotted the far eastern part of Ukraine. It made it further east before going westbound, providing the opportunity to closely monitor the northern border or Crimea. Following this, it again made its way to the northern part of the Black Sea to establish surveillance on Crimea. Then it flew the usual track for about 4 hours and returned to the Italian base.
IMAGE: theaviationist.com
The flight was also closely tracked on Twitter:
?? US Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk
52,000ft over the Black Sea – around Crimea, past the Kerch Strait & along the Russian coastline#Crimea #Ukraine #Russia #KerchStrait pic.twitter.com/rsX1Ap0zAV
— CivMilAir ✈??? (@CivMilAir) November 27, 2018
In the afternoon of November 27th, a US Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidon was also once again dispatched to the Black Sea. PS276 left Sigonella, flew towards Bulgaria before entering the area of interest. Its trajectory included a short pattern just south of the Kerch Strait. It moved quite close to the border.
“It was spotted making a continuous right turn to the area to the west of Sevastopol before making a hard left hand turn towards the south-west. During these maneuvers, it just remained in international airspace.”
IMAGE: theaviationist.com
A Twitter post also noted the P-8’s movements off the coast of Crimea.
On the following days there were various aircraft sent to the area to continue the surveillance.
IMAGE: theaviationist.com
On December 3rd, an EP-3E ARIES II was dispatched for the first time to the area, its callsign was TI34. It ran the following route:
IMAGE: theaviationist.com
It is not surprising that there was an increased interest of surveillance over the area. Following the November 25th incident, Russia announced it would deploy an additional S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, next to the current number of three systems already present. The system was deployed on November 29th, to protect Russian airspace. Satellite imagery, provided by ImageSat confirmed the deployment at Dzhankoy Airbase in northern Crimea.
Tension in the Crimea: #Russia has deployed S-400 at Dzhankoy Airbase.
After the sea incident in the #Azov Sea, the #Russians are setting up another S-400 battery in #Crimea peninsula and thickening the #military forces around #Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/hwY2AEScff
— ImageSat Intl. (@ImageSatIntl) December 2, 2018
The Russian Airforce, on its part, sent 5 IL-76 cargo aircraft to Crimea.
“In the afternoon of Dec. 5, aircraft RF-76740, RF-76743, RF-76747 RF-76739 initially flew from Taganrog Tsentralny Air Base to Anapa Airport (URKA). The next day, the entire ‘convoy’ headed towards Dzhankoy Airbase in Crimea. RF-76549 was later seen to be also going towards Crimea. Moreover, a RuAF A-50 AWACS aircraft was seen arriving at Novofedorivka (UKFI) in western Crimea, origination from Ivanovo Severny Air Base.”
Ил-76 А-50 50606 Иваново – Оленья + неизвестный (тяжелый) также следом на Оленью #RF50606 #RuaF pic.twitter.com/wKX6rUk5IJ
— Записки охотника (@galandecZP) October 19, 2018
Two of the IL-76s the RF-76747 and RF-76739 were seen going back to Anapa on December 8th. A large convoy of military equipment from a VDV division of airborne troops was seen on the Crimean Bridge on December 8th. There were suggestions that the aircraft was used to transport an unknown amount of airborne assault troops into the area, together with ground equipment.
Following all of this, on December 6th the US conducted an extraordinary flight under the Open Skies treaty. It was announced by the US State Department. It was aimed at reaffirming the US “commitment to Ukraine and other partner nations.”
“The flight was carried out by Open Skies OC-135B, registration 61-2670. Origination from Offutt AFB, it flew to Ramstein Air Base in Germany where it departed again in the morning of Dec. 5 towards Kiev. Around 09.30 GMT, OSY12F departed in a southern direction towards Crimea. At 10:20 hrs Zulu, it was captured via MLAT flying just north of Crimea flying towards the east.”
As a result of continuing tensions between the US, Ukraine and NATO on one side and Russia on the other, it would be expected that these surveillance efforts would continue, if not even increase in the future.
Spying is Americas favourite pastime,they spy on everything, they are the epitome of the police state in 1984.
Agreed, but they are shyte at everything else.
That’s a bit unfair, they are also very good at torture.
Sorry, my bad.
(how young, did I come across there ? – pretty cool hey ?).
he didn’t say they are good at it, he said they exercise it on large scale.
The US way of thinking that “bigger is better”, that so much strides with the pentagon lythanies that “quality is better than quantity”.
all in all, my slogan for them is “You don’t have a clue”.
No offence John, but are you on the right part of the thread ?.
Well, most of Your kind knows nothimg because You dont look around and learn.
most of yours instead learns from liars.
of course, you are going to deny it.
I don’t understand Mr Putin!!! Why does he allow the free unfettered spying by the coward USA….United Snakes of aipac in the black sea?? Even though it is international airspace, EVERY SINGLE TIME….send aircraft or drones to shadow VERY CLOSELY, each flight of the zio terrorist control US and keep jamming their systems and disrupting their critical flight systems….so they fall into the sea or ‘accidentally’ drift into Russian airspace….then taken down!!!
“I don’t understand Mr Putin”
Don’t bother straining your brain.
“keep jamming their systems and disrupting their critical flight systems”
why even waste the electric power when these “flights” are no more than showoffs to keep brainwashing retards and make it appear to porkoshenko he’s got support from the west.
John…u might have a point there…cheers…
Yes, jamming systems when the Yanks are playacting is what the US wants, in order to analyse the Russian data.
You never thought of how much intelligence Russia gets back, plus, having fun, manipulating the data the US believes to be correct?
I hope so Hants…possible. Seasons greetings to u and your family.
Hopefully, they will get a lot back. Do believe their defence technology is far superior to anything Nato has, including surveillance.
Season’s greeting back to you and your family. Take care.
If You dont understand this, You should try to understand something else.
U should try to understand why all the countries in the world have run u zio terrorist jhous out…is it because u r parasites?
Zionist dont run us.
You only can blame Yourself if some few million jews can run 1000 million muslims.
There is little Russia can do to stop this as the flights remain in International airspace. Russia could fire on any aircraft coming too close and argue later about exact location but…Nord Stream 2! I think though that Russia could make a public relations case that these flights, although remaining in International airspace, are harrassing in nature and then set practical military limits to flights in any one area near their borders. I mean Israeli flights over Lebanon are not legal but Israel conducts them under cover of self defense. Russia could alter the rules too starting with shooting down any drone flying close to Russian territory in the same area where another NATO aircraft is already operating. No one gets killed but Russia sets an initial practical limit that it can expand later, in degrees, to cover things like racetrack loitering.
But on the flip side the American behavior is laughable. For a Ukraine hoping for help, watching American planes circle and fly outside Crimean and Russian airspace, day after day, circling and watching and doing little else must be something like watching impotence in action. These planes never enter Russian airspace, even Crimean Russian airspace and never do anything to challenge the status quo. Impotent, and on a mounting fuel bill.
P-8A Poseidon Maritime Surveillance Aircraft
MAXIMUM FUEL CAPACITY : 34,096 kg
MAXIMUM ZERO FUEL WEIGHT : 62,732 kg
…. and we wonder, why the Earth is dying !!!.
don’t forget the price tag on the toilet cover, around 12000 $.
Its like the rest in Russia. The soldiers in the airplanes probatly have holes in the floors as facilities.
In their smoking hager its same thing. The eating facilities are very small, som the marines often only eat twice a day and can use slimmer hatches :) The idea is taken from the T34.
i don’t quite understand but wait – ah i get it, this was meant to be a joke.
Yes
Russia and America differ in many ways and one of them is that Russia will not waste time and effort prancing around like a bitch on heat.
long gone are the days when intel gathering was done discreetly.
now you can follow the planes in realtime over the web as they use common transponder codes.
the Russians must be terrified.
Very :)
https://image.shutterstock.com/image-vector/illustration-soviet-bear-symbol-russiarussian-260nw-477696886.jpg
Verbal escalation of the worst kind.
Wonder if Russia interferes with her surveillance, distorting what is found or just jamming the electrics, when necessary. No doubt, Russia gets plenty of intelligence back, with the US being too thick to realise.
USS Donald Cook meets Bastion, so comes to mind.
Its very simple. The Russian expansion make counter expansion.
“Its very simple.”
nah. simpleton.
I think it is seen from above. Of course making an improved situation is much more difficult.
We dont want any more russian expansion in Europe as well as other places.Thats it. We are the many small and not so small countries in Europe.We have our own internal problems as well.
So we do protect the regained new ones incl. Ukraine.
We cant do everything with and for them, but we give them space and a russian buzz off -solve Your own problems, which they are not very good at, as well trying to give the ancient systems in eastern systen as chance.
Some might forget, that those has suffered by others too like Zars, Poland plus/minus germany. Only the Austria/Hungary conglomerate was not so bad for them. They at least tryed to include the mix in a kind of same way as the ottomans did.
Hi John. Jens is a zio terrorist jew hasbara squatting in tel Aviv but talking about “we” as if they a see party of Europe. Ignore her or send her some toilet paper for the Christmas.
Anybody old enough to remember Gary Powers?
the best part was Krushev withelding the info that the pilot had been captured, prompting Eisenhower to go public that the plane was a weather research one.
after a while, the soviets published the capture of the pilot, who admitted being a spy and creating one of the greatest embarassments for an US administration ever (at least until our days)
The Americunt who came down in a blaze of American glory?
It is really time for those supersonic nuclear bombers to make a visit to Cuba for Christmas and New Year.
Come on Russia! Don’t you get the message? The West hates you because you are Russia and has always done so.
Stop the kow-towing of the West!!!