American aerial reconnaissance planes, including strategic RQ-4 Global Hawk drones worth $140 million each, have again frequented the Black Sea, coming from the Balkans and the Mediterranean Sea to monitor the border areas of Russia. But their activity dwindled dramatically after the US Armed Forces’ $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone crashed in waters near Crimea on March 14 after encountering aerospace forces. Russian Su-27.
So, before the mentioned incident, the Americans flew unceremoniously along the 44th parallel and were able to “see” all of Crimea, up to Dzhankoy. Now US reconnaissance aircraft, manned aircraft and drones fly along the 43rd parallel and can “look” as far as Sevastopol, which has significantly reduced US intelligence capabilities on the peninsula.
For example, the all-weather synthetic aperture radar of the RQ-4 Global Hawk drones provides a radar image of the terrain with a resolution of 1 meter at a distance of 200 km. So now anything north of the south coast is no longer available for US aerial reconnaissance. New data indirectly confirms reports previously received that Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin ordered drone operators and manned aircraft crews of the US Armed Forces not to approach the Crimean Peninsula unless 80.4 km.
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