U.S. Global Hawk 'Eye in the Sky' Is Watching Ukraine's Counteroffensive

In 1943, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin said that the Second World War would be won by "British brains, American brawn, and Russian blood." Eighty years later, Stalin's formula has been revised. On the devastated battlefields of Ukraine, U.S. brains and brawn are helping Kyiv's troops draw plentiful blood from President Vladimir Putin's Soviet successor state.

Kyiv has been wielding American and allied intelligence against the klepto-imperial Kremlin since well before its full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Ukraine's troops are doing the fighting and dying, but Western intelligence has helped sharpen their herculean national defense.

Ukrainian troops—thousands of them trained at NATO bases and armed with Western heavy weapons—are now pushing again, hoping to precipitate a Russian collapse akin to those north of Kyiv in April 2022 and east of Kharkiv in September of that year. As they do so, deep strikes are targeting Russian command and infrastructure targets across occupied Ukraine—and perhaps even inside southwestern Russia.

And far to the south, American eyes are watching.

America's FORTE

Since the Institute for the Study of War deemed Ukraine's counteroffensive to have begun on June 8, at least four U.S. Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk drone flights have been recorded over the Black Sea by the Flightradar24 website. The aircraft fly from Naval Air Station Sigonella close to the Sicilian city of Catania, Italy.

The Global Hawks are among America's most powerful reconnaissance tools, able to fly at 60,000 feet for more than hours, at a range of 9,500 miles. Its cameras can gather near real-time, high-resolution imagery of large areas in all types of weather, day or night, according to manufacturer Northrop Grumman.

The Global Hawks are not alone. American and NATO RC-135 Rivet Joint, WC-135 Constant Phoenix and E-8C, and a prototype aircraft called ARTEMIS have been keeping a close eye on Russian military movements since Moscow's military buildup on Ukraine's frontiers began in 2021.

But the ever-present and mysterious nature of the Global Hawks—operating first over central and eastern Ukraine, and since February 2022 over the Black Sea under the FORTE1, FORTE11, and FORTE12 callsigns—has piqued the interest of aviation enthusiasts.

Whenever they are airborne, the FORTE aircraft are among the most tracked on the Flightradar24 website. They have their own dedicated Reddit page with nearly 2,000 subscribers, have spawned their own memes, and can even be found on the front of novelty T-shirts.

In a war of unparalleled accessibility for distant observers, tracking FORTE aircraft "gives a unique insight," Ian Petchenik, the director of communications at Flightradar24, told Newsweek.

"If you read a history of any war at any time, there's going to be talk about troop movements, material movements, where the trains were running, how many horses there are, and so on. I think that this is just a new chapter in a very old study of conflict."

The Global Hawks are more than just a symbol of American and NATO commitment to Ukranian survival. James Rogers, of the University of Southern Denmark and the London School of Economics, told Newsweek: "The Global Hawk flights have been, and continue to be, incredibly important to the war in Ukraine."

"They provide the NATO allies with broader, vital situational awareness of the region as a means to keep a watchful eye on Russia's offensive capabilities," he said, noting their "many missions" in the region since October 2021.

"While the drones are unlikely to help in tactical direct fire, they help with broader strategic decision making for NATO allies."

It is not entirely clear how or even if Ukraine is using intelligence gathered by American Global Hawks, or even exactly how far into Ukraine the aircraft can see. The Pentagon did not respond to Newsweek's emailed request for comment on the FORTE surveillance flights.

Rogers said exactly what the Global Hawks see depends on the sensor payload fitted for specific missions and their distance from a surveillance target.

NATO AGS Global Hawks, he noted, are fitted with equipment including long-range beyond line-of-sight wideband data links facilitating a 10,112-mile range. "This makes the Global Hawk one of the longest range and most advanced drones in the world," Rogers said.

"However, this doesn't mean the Global Hawk will be used to see deep into occupied regions," he added.

The drones can be used in "spot collection mode"—in which Global Hawks can see 1,900 1.2-square-mile spots per day—or in "wide area mode," in which the drones can surveil a six-mile-wide area with a daily coverage of 40,000 square nautical miles.

"This means it is ideal for border patrol and ensuring Russia does not violate surrounding states," Rogers said. "However, given reports that some Global Hawk flights have come as close as 60 nautical miles off the Russian coast in 2023—not far from the cities of Sochi and Novorossiysk—the Global Hawks may be used to provide more specific intel on important developing situations in the Black Sea region."

Black Sea Dogfight

Russian officials have made clear they believe American drones are a direct part of the ongoing conflict. After Russian aircraft downed a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea in March, Moscow's envoy to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, told Newsweek American UAVs "gather intelligence which is later used by the Kyiv regime to attack our armed forces and territory."

The destruction of that drone prompted a pause in U.S. drone flights in the region. When they resumed, some observers noted that the FORTE flight paths were further from the Crimean coast than before the incident.

Lieutenant General (retired) Ben Hodges, the former commander of U.S. Army Europe, told Newsweek: "I think that the [Defense] Department told them to stay further away from Crimea after the Reaper was knocked down."

"If that's accurate, then we have ceded airspace to the Russians in order to avoid that happening again. That's the opposite of freedom of navigation, freedom of international airspace. Why would we ever cede anything like that?...They will keep pushing and pushing and pushing. If that's accurate, that was a serious mistake."

"Of course, it's more difficult to have good intelligence if you're having to be offset further away from that," Hodges added. "We should certainly enable Ukraine to be able to hit targets in Crimea. Make Crimea untenable, so that the Russians can't just sit there."

Russian officials said they intended to salvage the Black Sea Reaper and reverse engineer their own advanced drone. A similar situation with a downed Global Hawk, Rogers said, would fray nerves within NATO.

"The Global Hawk drones have, understandably, been operating at an increased distance from Crimea since the Russia military downed a U.S. Reaper drone over the Black Sea in March 2023," he explained. "Given Russia's irresponsible, unprofessional, and I would argue reckless, actions, the NATO allies will not want to risk these expensive assets."

"Put simply, it is clear that the Russian military sees U.S. drones as a direct security threat and a target. As such, NATO will also want to make sure these highly advanced systems—and the hardware onboard—do not fall into the hands of the Russian military."

"This will naturally mean the drones have a reduced range and will not be able to see as deep into occupied regions, nevertheless the drones will still be gathering important data that is vital to the U.S. and NATO."

"Indeed, it is important to note that while we know many things about the hardware and software on the drones, there are also new experimental systems being tested that may afford a longer-range intel capacity, but it is not possible to verify this understandably classified details at this time."