According to the newspaper, the United States will continue drone flights in the Crimea region for the time being, and at least one mission is planned for the coming days.
At the same time, America is “taking a hard look” at how to reduce tensions with Russia in the region. The Pentagon has officially asked the European Command of US forces to prepare a risk analysis of drone missions for them.
The Pentagon is mainly interested in whether it is worth continuing the reconnaissance missions even if there is a chance that Russia will escalate the conflict with America due to drone flights in the region. Russia officially maintains a no-fly zone over Crimea, but according to it, the United States does not respect this. At the same time, CNN notes that Moscow did not even officially inform Washington of the creation of the zone.
There was also the idea of limiting drone reconnaissance to a predetermined route, which would also be shared with Russia. At the same time, U.S. officials worry that it will limit U.S. intelligence capabilities that have proven critical to Ukraine’s armed forces.
The obvious mission of the drone missions around Crimea is to monitor Russian troop movements in the occupied Ukrainian region, and America usually passes such information on to Ukraine. At the same time, the United States has other means of monitoring Russian troop movements, such as satellites or electronic warfare systems.
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