ABOARD A FRENCH AIR FORCE AWACS (AP) — In the distance, Ukraine is fighting for its survival. Seen from here, in the cockpit of a French Air Force surveillance plane flying over neighboring Romania, the snow-covered landscapes look deceptively peaceful.
The dead from the Russian war, the shattered Ukrainian cities and mutilated battlefields are not visible to the naked eye through the clouds.
But French military technicians sitting further back in the plane, monitoring screens that display the word “secret” when not in use, have a much more poignant view. With a powerful radar that rotates around the fuselage six times a minute and a belly full of surveillance equipment, the plane can detect missile launches, aerial bombardments and other military activities in the conflict.
As the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches on Feb. 24, 2022, The Associated Press was granted rare and exclusive access aboard the massive Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft. With 26 soldiers and an AP journalist on board, it flew a ten-hour reconnaissance mission from central France to Romanian airspace and back, peering with electronic eyes over southern Ukraine and the Black Sea to Russian-occupied Crimea and beyond .
The plane, with a proud rooster painted on its tail, circled on autopilot at an altitude of 10 kilometers, feeding information to commanders on the ground in real time.
Her mission for NATO on the eastern flank of the 31-nation military alliance also effectively drew a do-not-cross line in European airspace.
The aircraft’s continued presence high above eastern Romania – seen and witnessed by Russian forces – indicated how intensely NATO is monitoring its borders and Russia, ready if necessary to intervene should Russian aggression escalate threaten to expand outside Ukraine.
SHIELDS FOR NATO, PIECES OF AVIATION HISTORY
Regular surveillance flights, together with combat patrols, ground radar, missile batteries and other hardware at NATO’s disposal, provide what the commander of the French AWACS squadron described as “a shield” against any potential spillover.
The “ultimate goal is of course not conflict and deterrence,” said the commander, a lieutenant colonel named Richard. Due to French security concerns, the AP could only identify him and other military personnel by their rank and first names.
“We have to show that we have the shield, and show the other countries that NATO is a collective defense,” he continued. “We have the ability to detect everywhere. And we are not here for conflict. We are here to show that we are present and ready.”
France’s four AWACS are among a variety of surveillance aircraft, including unmanned UAV drones, that gather intelligence for NATO and its member states. Lt. Col. Richard said the French E-3F-type AWACS can see hundreds of miles with their distinctive black-and-white roof-mounted radomes, although he wouldn’t be precise.
E-3s are modified Boeing 707s. The 707 first flew in 1957, but stopped carrying passengers commercially in 2013, so E-3s are also flying examples of aviation history.
“We can detect aircraft, we can detect UAVs, we can detect missiles and we can detect ships. That is certainly true in Ukraine, especially when we are at the border,” said Lt. Col. Richard.
As the aircraft loitered and scanned, the crew spotted a distant Russian AWACS over the Sea of Azov, many hundreds of miles away on the eastern side of the Crimean Peninsula. The Russian aircraft apparently also saw the French AWACS: sensors along the fuselage picked up Russian radar signals.
“We know they see us, they know we see them. Let’s say it’s a kind of dialogue between them and us,” said French co-pilot Major Romain.
HAWK-EYED AWACS ON CALL TO PROTECT THE OLYMPIC GAMES
NATO also has its own fleet of 14 AWACS, also E-3s. They can detect low-flying targets within a radius of 400 kilometers (250 miles) and higher-flying targets another 120 kilometers (75 miles) beyond, the alliance says. It says that one AWACS can monitor an area the size of Poland; three can cover all of Central Europe.
The French AWACS can fly for twelve hours without refueling and are not limited to surveillance, communications and air traffic control missions for NATO. They expect to be deployed as part of the massive security operation for the Paris Olympics, providing additional radar surveillance with what Lt. Col. Richard called their “God’s Eye View.”
Russian pilots have sometimes made it clear that they do not like being watched.
In 2022, a Russian fighter jet fired a missile near a British Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft flying in international airspace over the Black Sea, the British government said. The US government released a video in March 2023 of a Russian fighter jet dumping fuel on a US Air Force surveillance drone. The drone crashed in the Black Sea.
Rivet Joints are extremely capable spy planes, and Russian authorities “really hate” their ability to snoop on the war in Ukraine, says Justin Bronk, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute defense think tank in London.
In addition to gathering “real-time information that could theoretically be shared with Ukrainian partners,” the planes also provide “fantastic” insight into “how Russian forces actually operate in a real war,” Bronk said in a telephone interview.
“So of course the Russians are furious,” he said.
IN THE AIR, REGULAR MEETINGS
NATO also uses fighter planes to carry out Russian flights. It said allied aircraft took to the airspace more than 500 times in 2022 to intercept Russian aircraft that ventured close to NATO airspace. The number of such meetings fell to more than 300 by 2023, according to the Brussels-headquartered alliance.
The reinforcement of Ukrainian air defenses with Western weapons may partly explain the decline, with shootings apparently putting Russian pilots on alert. Last year, NATO noted reduced activity of manned Russian flights over the western Black Sea. NATO says that “the vast majority of air combat between NATO and Russian jets was safe and professional” and that Russian incursions into NATO airspace were rare and generally short-lived.
On board the French flight, the co-pilot, Major Romain, said that Russian aircraft have not intercepted French AWACS “for a long time” and that if they did, the French pilots would try to defuse the tension.
“Our orders should be, shall we say, passive,” he said. “For a citizen, let’s say ‘polite’.”
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Find more of AP’s reporting on Russia and Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine