A US Air Force RQ-4B Global Hawk reconnaissance drone (call sign FORTE12) conducted a patrol over the Black Sea near occupied Crimea during Ukrainian missile strikes against Russian military targets.
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The Global Hawk arrived on station southwest of Sevastopol at least three hours before Ukrainian missile strikes and loitered for about seven hours.
The aircraft was operating from Sigonella, Italy and flew a figure-eight patrol pattern.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that an S-400 air defense system may have been damaged as a result of the attack
Two radars of the S-300 and S-400 systems were destroyed
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Extraction metadata
Extracted: 2026-02-23T15:07:56.564Z
Source story: 34185