The United States and its NATO allies have tripled the number of reconnaissance flights near Crimea since the beginning of the year - from 7 to 21 per week, according to data from the portal Flightradar24.
During the week of 18 to 24 September, US reconnaissance aircraft and strategic drones, as well as the "scouts" of their NATO allies, flew 21 flights near Crimea, the portal's track archive shows.
Most visible were the American P-8A Poseidon and EP-3E Aries II, British RC-135W Rivet Joint and Luxembourg-based E-3A Sentry over the eastern coast of Romania. US RQ-4B Global Hawk strategic reconnaissance aircraft flew over the central and eastern Black Sea. Most of the sorties - 16 out of 21 - were flown by US aircraft.
By contrast, earlier in the year and in the spring, US and NATO aviation conducted an average of one flight per day in the Black Sea region. For example, during the week of 16 to 22 January, NATO aviation (also predominantly US aircraft and UAVs) conducted only seven sorties in the area, and during the week of 15 to 21 May , only five.
One day before the 22 September cruise missile attack on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reconnaissance activity by US and its allies' aviation increased to six flights a day which would suggest a connection between the intensity of the Western reconnaissance flights and the intensity of the Ukrainian armed forces' attacks on the Crimea.