Major U.S. Aerial ISR Operation Supports Biden Visit To Kyiv

U.S. President Joe Biden has promised further deliveries of lethal aid and equipment to Ukraine as he made an unprecedented visit to the country’s capital Kyiv.

The surprise trip on Feb. 20 saw Biden meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy days before the one-year anniversary of Russia launching its invasion. 

Biden was greeted by air-raid sirens as he went for a walkabout with Zelenskyy in Kyiv’s central Mykhailivska Square. 

While Biden is understood to have traveled into Kyiv by train from Poland early on Feb. 20, his visit was supported by a large number of U.S. airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets. 

Supporting the operation since Feb. 19, a U.S. Air Force Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint operating out of Mildenhall, England, flew an unusually long, 16.5-hr. mission along the Poland/Ukraine border. This is believed to be one of the longest missions performed by an RC-135 during operations near Ukraine. 

Joining the RC-135 were two U.S. Air Force Boeing E-3 Sentry airborne early warning aircraft operating from Poland and flying along the Ukrainian border. These E-3s have been deployed in Europe since mid-January. 

To the south, a U.S. Navy Lockheed EP-3 Aries signals intelligence aircraft operated along the Romania/Ukraine border for much of Feb. 20, supported by one of the U.S. Army’s Artemis platforms. 

Other assets operating in the region that day included one of the Swedish Air Force’s Gulfstream business jet-based Korpen signals intelligence-collection platforms and a UK Royal Air Force Rivet Joint operating from Crete. 

In a statement about the visit published by the White House, Biden said the U.S. would deliver more artillery ammunition, anti-armor systems and air-surveillance radars to help protect the Ukrainian people from aerial bombardment.  

He also announced that Washington would undertake “additional sanctions against elites and companies that are trying to evade [them] or backfill Russia’s war machine.”