Map Shows US and NATO Spy Flights Near Russia

The United States and its ally in Europe continued their spy flights along the eastern flank of NATO this week to collect intelligence on Russia’s military amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

At least three spy flights were captured on Monday and Tuesday by the aircraft tracking service Flightradar24. Two of them, RQ-4B “Global Hawk” and RC-135U “Combat Sent,” were assigned to the U.S. Air Force, while the other one was a RC-135W “Rivet Joint” of the U.K.’s Royal Air Force.

The “Combat Sent” collects technical intelligence on foreign military radar emitter systems, while the “Rivet Joint” can detect, identify, and geolocate signals throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, according to the U.S. Air Force. They belong to the RC-135 family of reconnaissance airframes.

The “Global Hawk” is a high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle with an endurance of more than 34 hours in flight. It has an integrated sensor suite that provides persistent near-real-time coverage and global all-weather, day or night intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability.

Flight tracking data showed two of the three spy flights were conducted on Monday. The British “Rivet Joint” departed from Waddington air base in England and transited over the airspace of the Netherlands and Germany before flying over the waters in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Poland.

The aircraft bypassed Russia’s Kaliningrad, which is sandwiched between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, and flew into Lithuania. It transited southward, bypassing Kaliningrad again, and reached Poland. It returned to base following the conclusion of this five and a half-hour flight.

Meanwhile, the American “Global Hawk” departed from Sigonella air base on the Italian island of Sicily. The spy drone transited over Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and reached Poland. It flew along the country’s eastern border and circled over the area adjacent to Belarus.

The flight of the “Global Hawk” lasted 18 hours, according to flight tracking data. A drone of the same type flew a 34.3-hour flight in 2014, the longest unrefueled flight in the U.S. Air Force’s history.

On Tuesday, the “Combat Sent” was deployed from Mildenhall air base in England, its temporary home since arriving in the United Kingdom last month. The aircraft flew on a similar flight of the “Rivet Joint” from the previous day, but it headed further north and reached Latvia, flight tracking data showed.

Newsweek‘s map, displaying Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, traces the flights of the “Rivet Joint” and the “Combat Sent” in the Baltic region based on tracking data. The flight of the former was RRR7202, while the latter was JAKE27, which lasted approximately five and a half hours.

The NATO spy flights come after Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on Sunday that there is a “clear intent” of his country to change its nuclear war policy, claiming that the decision was related to escalation by Western “adversaries” in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.