A United States reconnaissance aircraft specializing in signals intelligence continued its spy flight since being deployed in Europe this month and flew near the far northwest part of Russia on Thursday.
The flight of a U.S. Air Force RC-135U, known as "Combat Sent," lasted about nine hours, data captured on Thursday by the aircraft tracking service Flightradar24 showed. The aircraft, deployed to the United Kingdom since August 18, departed the Mildenhall air base in eastern England.
The American spy plane was traceable when it was flying over Poland. It transited the airspace of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia before crossing the Gulf of Finland and reaching Finland, one of the two Nordic countries that joined NATO since Russia's full invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
The primary function of "Combat Sent" is to conduct electronic intelligence reconnaissance and surveillance, according to the Air Force's fact sheet. It can locate and identify foreign military land, naval, and airborne radar signals to determine their operating characteristics and capabilities.
There are only two aircraft of the same type in the Air Force's inventory. The crew of each aircraft is composed of two pilots, one navigator, two airborne systems engineers, and a minimum of 10 electronic warfare officers, or "Ravens," and six or more electronic, technical, and area specialists.
Newsweek's map, displaying Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, traces the aircraft's flight path in Finland, which borders Russia to the east. It left the Finnish airspace via the country's northern region and transited over the northernmost mainland point of Norway, another NATO member.
The aircraft flew to the southeast after reaching over the waters off Norway's northern coast, where it operated along the coast of Russia's Kola Peninsula, tracking data showed. The main naval base of the Russian Northern Fleet is situated at Severomorsk, near Murmansk, a major city on that Arctic peninsula.
The "Combat Sent" also bypassed the Russian semi-exclave Kaliningrad, which is situated on the Baltic Sea and is sandwiched between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, twice during the flight.
The Baltic territory has been under Russia's Leningrad Military District since March in response to NATO accession of Finland and Sweden. The Russian navy's Baltic Fleet is headquartered there as well, making the territory, which is encircled by NATO members, a strategic outpost in the region.
Meanwhile, the Swedish corvettes and helicopters conducted exercises in the southern Baltic Sea over the past week, the Nordic naval service said on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday. There has been extra focus on critical underwater infrastructure, as well as surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare.
The Nord Stream pipelines, carrying Russian gas to Germany, were hit by explosions in economic zones of Sweden and Denmark in September 2022. Sweden ended its investigation in February this year due to the lack of jurisdiction. Neither Russia, Ukraine, nor the West has taken responsibility.
Before the outbreak of Russia-Ukraine War, Sweden adopted the policy of neutrality and military nonalignment. However, it decided to apply for NATO membership in May 2022 in response to a changed security situation in Europe. The country became a NATO member in March this year.
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