After a one-year break, the American drone began patrolling the Black Sea

The American strategic reconnaissance RQ-4B Global Hawk of the Northrop Grumman company, after a break of almost a year, appeared yesterday morning over the waters of the Black Sea.

At 4:54 UTC it took off from the American Sigonella Air Base on the island of Sicily, and at 7:18 UTC it appeared over the Black Sea near the Bulgarian city of Burgas. This is the first appearance of the largest unmanned scout in the world over our region in the last year.

The last time “Global Hawk” carried out reconnaissance of the occupied Crimea was on June 24 last year. On that day, patrolling over the Black Sea almost ended in disaster for him – a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet flew a few meters above the drone, creating a powerful stream of turbulence. The American operators decided not to test their fate and returned the drone to the base.

Before this attack, the RQ-4B regularly appeared over the Black Sea. The main purpose of reconnaissance was the work of enemy anti-aircraft defense systems, data on which was then transmitted to our Defense Forces for analysis and destruction. Each such mission was accompanied by an interception – Russian planes tried to interrupt the collection of information.

After refusing to patrol with Global Hawks, the Americans switched to reconnaissance with the help of other means — long-range radar detection aircraft (LDLO) of the Boeing E-3A type, AVACS systems and strategic scouts of other NATO countries, in particular, British, French, Italian and others.

However, the most famous incident was the crash of the second American scout, the MQ-9 Reaper. On March 14, 2023, two Russian Su-27 fighters intercepted it off the Crimean coast. The American did not violate anything by barrage over neutral waters 150 km from the southern coast of Crimea. The drone’s camera recorded how the Russian plane flew just a couple of meters above it, and at the same time opened the fuel drain valve.

According to the American command, the drone had to be sunk after the Su-27 pilot made a dangerous maneuver, jammed the propeller of the drone, as a result of which he lost control.

“Dumskaya” columnist Alexey Sukhoi emphasized that for the first time since Donald Trump’s inauguration, an American unmanned strategic reconnaissance aircraft appeared over the Black Sea.

“All previous Global Hawk and Ryperov missions were under Biden and almost always ended with interceptions and hostile actions by Russian fighters,” the expert notes. — It is clear that if there had been an order, the planes could have easily shot down the American with a missile or cannon fire, but the drone did not violate anything, there was no order to open fire, so the pilots tried to prevent reconnaissance by aggressive maneuvering. Judging by the Global Hawk’s patrolling track, today it is operating far from Crimea, so the Russian Federation is unlikely to raise fighter jets for interception. However, it is very interesting how the VKS (Air and Space Forces of the Russian Federation) will behave in the event that the drone approaches the coast of Crimea. Is Trump sure that Putin will not give the order to shoot down the spy?”
DEATH TO THE RUSSIAN OCCUPIERS!