In the midst of a Pentagon briefing about one of its drones shot down by Russian fighter jets earlier this week, a manned U.S. maritime surveillance plane was spotted flying in the skies not far from the region where the incident took place.
According to Flightradar24 data, an oft-cited civilian aviation website pooling open source aircraft data from global networks, a manned U.S. Navy Boeing P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft was flying off the coast of the Black Sea in Romanian airspace not far from the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, a frequent target of Russian air strikes, on Wednesday. The sight of the U.S. aircraft near the Ukrainian border comes shortly after the first time American and Russian forces physically engaged one another since the war began.
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Onboard pilots operate Poseidons, a larger reconnaissance jet than the unmanned MQ-9 Reaper that crashed Tuesday after an incident with Russian fighters. The planes have been spotted near the Ukrainian border with Romania several times since the invasion first began in February 2022. The Navy describes the plane as a multipurpose patrol aircraft used for “long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” missions.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Pentagon issued a statement about a phone call between Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, where Shoigu was told that all U.S. aircraft wouldn’t be intimidated and “continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows.” Austin discussed his conversation with Shoigu with reporters during the Pentagon briefing following that call.
The latest flightpath shows the Poseidon flying out of the U.S. Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy, and looping all the way up along the Romanian coastline, along the Black Sea where it has been loitering in circles. In May, when Ukrainian naval forces struck the Russian naval flagship Moskva, a Poseidon with a similar flight plan was reportedly spotted beforehand.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment on the Poseidon plane that flew in Romanian airspace.
President Joe Biden’s administration has already been known to pass along surveillance and intelligence information to Kyiv in its bid to aid Ukraine against the much larger Russian military. In the past, the Pentagon and CIA have shared information including real-time locations of Russian generals in Ukraine for assassination and images of Russian troop build-ups in neighboring Belarus.
Despite giving intelligence and billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine, the Biden administration has stopped short of entering the war as a combatant, which would trigger a world war with Russia. The president and various Pentagon officials have continuously preached restraint and the need to communicate with the Kremlin as to avoid a broadening conflict and the risk of nuclear war.
“We do not seek armed conflict with Russia,” Gen. Mark Milley, the chief of the defense staff and the highest ranking soldier in the U.S. military, said in the same briefing.
After Russian Su-27 fighters downed the U.S. drone Tuesday, Pentagon officials were quick to downplay the incident as an act of war. But they did accuse Russia of reckless and escalatory behavior.
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