Militarnyi reports that yesterday, three civilian ships (Israelian, Greek and Turkish/Georgian origin) were able to bypass the Russian blockade of the Black Sea and headed for Ukraine. It is reported that the passage was secured by a US P8 anti-ship aircraft.
That seems pretty significant. It seems unlikely the ships would have been targeted by Russia if they were flying the flags of their country of origin, but to have an armed escort is definitely a huge deterrence. I have to wonder what sort of response it'll garner considering all the other 'unprofessional acts' Russian aircraft have been employing against unarmed US aircraft lately.
P-8s are so silly because they're 737s and look exactly like a Delta flight I'd take, but are in fact deadly ship killers lmao.
They're apparently armed with anti-ship torpedoes and missiles. I assume they just drop them from the hatch in the back.
Did they do anything towards manned aircraft? I thought they just fucked with drones.
Yes, there were reports recently of manned serveilance aircraft being subjected to wake turbulence. I think there were other incidents in addition to this report.
Citing unidentified US officials, The Associated Press news agency also reported last week that a Russian jet flew dangerously close to a US surveillance aircraft over Syria on July 16, “putting the lives of the four American crew members in danger”.
Yeah I literally whispered "wow" when I saw they had a US anti-ship escort