{"id":76227,"date":"2024-01-18T20:15:46","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T20:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2024\/01\/18\/secretive-surveillance-flights-keep-close-watch-on-russia-and-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:09:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:09:51","slug":"secretive-surveillance-flights-keep-close-watch-on-russia-and-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/flashpoints\/2024\/01\/18\/secretive-surveillance-flights-keep-close-watch-on-russia-and-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretive surveillance flights keep close watch on Russia and Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ABOARD A FRENCH AIR FORCE AWACS \u2014 Off in the distance, Ukraine, fighting for its survival<\/a>. Seen from up here, in the cockpit of a French air force surveillance plane flying over neighboring Romania, the snow-dusted landscapes look deceptively peaceful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dead from Russia\u2019s war<\/a>, the shattered Ukrainian towns and mangled battlefields, aren\u2019t visible to the naked eye through the clouds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But French military technicians riding farther back in the aircraft, monitoring screens that display the word \u201csecret\u201d when idle, have a far more penetrating view. With a powerful radar that rotates six times every minute on the fuselage and a bellyful of surveillance gear, the plane can spot missile launches, airborne bombing runs and other military activity in the conflict<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the second anniversary of Russia\u2019s Feb. 24, 2022<\/a>, invasion of Ukraine nears, The Associated Press obtained rare and exclusive access aboard the giant Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft. With 26 military personnel and an AP journalist aboard, it flew a 10-hour reconnaissance mission from central France to Romanian airspace and back, peering with electronic eyes across southern Ukraine and the Black Sea to Russian-occupied Crimea<\/a> and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Circling on auto-pilot at 34,000 feet (10 kilometers), the plane with a proud cockerel painted on its tail fed intelligence in real time to ground-based commanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its mission for NATO<\/a> on the eastern flank of the 31-nation military alliance also, in effect, drew a do-not-cross line in European skies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A crew member snaps a souvenir photo from the cockpit of a French military AWACS surveillance plane as it flies a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. (John Leicester\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The plane\u2019s sustained presence high above eastern Romania \u2014 seeing and also being seen by Russian forces \u2014 signaled how intensely NATO is watching its borders and Russia, ready if necessary to act should Russian aggression threaten to extend beyond Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shields for NATO, pieces of aviation history<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Regular surveillance flights, together with fighter patrols, ground-based radar, missile batteries and other hardware at NATO\u2019s disposal, form what the commander of France\u2019s AWACS squadron described as \u201ca shield\u201d against any potential spill-over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cultimate goal is, of course, no conflict and deterrence,\u201d said the commander, a lieutenant colonel named Richard. Because of French security concerns, the AP was only able to identify him and other military personnel by their ranks and first names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to show that we have the shield, show to the other countries that NATO is collective defense,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe have the ability to detect everywhere. And we are not here for a conflict. We are here to show that we are present and ready.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France\u2019s four AWACS are among a variety of surveillance aircraft, including unmanned UAV drones, that gather intelligence for NATO and its member nations. Lt. Col. Richard said the French E-3F-type AWACS see for hundreds of kilometers (miles) with their distinctive black-and-white rooftop radar domes, although he wouldn\u2019t be precise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E-3s are modified Boeing 707s. The 707 first flew in 1957 but stopped carrying passengers commercially in 2013, so E-3s are also flying examples of aviation history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can detect aircraft, we can detect UAVs, we can detect missiles and we can detect ships. That\u2019s true, for sure, in Ukraine, especially when we are at the border,\u201d Lt. Col. Richard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the plane loitered and scanned, the crew detected a distant Russian AWACS<\/a> above the Sea of Azov, many hundreds of kilometers away on the Crimean Peninsula\u2019s eastern side. The Russian aircraft also seemingly spotted the French AWACS: Sensors along the fuselage picked up Russian radar signals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know that they see us, they know that we see them. Let\u2019s say that it\u2019s some kind of a dialogue between them and us,\u201d the French co-pilot, Major Romain, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawk-eyed AWACS on call to safeguard the Olympics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

NATO also has its own fleet of 14 AWACS<\/a>, also E-3s. They can detect low-flying targets within 400 kilometers (250 miles) and higher-flying targets another 120 kilometers (75 miles) beyond that, the alliance says. It says one AWACS can surveil an area the size of Poland; three can cover all of central Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Able to fly for 12 hours without refueling, French AWACS aren\u2019t limited to surveillance, communications and air-traffic control missions for NATO. They expect to be deployed as part of the massive security operation for the Paris Olympics,<\/a> providing additional radar surveillance with what Lt. Col. Richard called their \u201cGod\u2019s-eye view.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russian pilots have at times made clear that they don\u2019t like being watched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, a Russian fighter jet released a missile near a British air force RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft that was flying in international airspace over the Black Sea, Britain\u2019s government said<\/a>. The U.S. government released video<\/a> in March 2023 of a Russian fighter jet dumping fuel on a U.S. Air Force surveillance drone<\/a>. The drone crashed into the Black Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rivet Joints are particularly capable spy planes, and Russian authorities \u201creally hate\u201d their ability to snoop on the Ukraine war, said Justin Bronk, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute defense think tank in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as gathering \u201creal-time intelligence that theoretically could be shared with Ukrainian partners,\u201d the planes also furnish \u201cfantastic\u201d insight about \u201chow Russian forces actually operate in a real war,\u201d Bronk said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo of course, the Russians are furious,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the skies, regular encounters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

NATO also scrambles fighter jets<\/a> to scope Russian flights. It says allied aircraft took to the skies more than 500 times in 2022 to intercept Russian aircraft that ventured close to NATO airspace. The number of such encounters dropped to more than 300 in 2023, according to the Brussels-headquartered alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strengthening of Ukrainian air defenses with Western weaponry may partly explain the decrease, with shoot-downs seemingly making Russian pilots warier. NATO observed reduced activity by manned Russian flights over the western Black Sea last year. NATO says \u201cthe vast majority of aerial encounters between NATO and Russian jets were safe and professional\u201d and that Russian incursions into NATO airspace were rare and generally short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aboard the French flight, the co-pilot, Major Romain, said Russian planes haven\u2019t intercepted a French AWACS \u201cfor a long time\u201d and that if they did, French pilots would try to defuse any tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur orders are to be, let\u2019s say, passive,\u201d he said. \u201cFor a civilian, let\u2019s say \u2018polite.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NATO policing of its airspace has ramped up since the Russian invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":108859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":13,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,13,16,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3101],"class_list":["post-76227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"I3RPQECUJFEOLJL2NXGRNHD4FY","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/ukraine\/2024\/01\/18\/secretive-surveillance-flights-keep-close-watch-on-russia-and-ukraine\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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