By Staff, Agencies

Data on the Flightradar24 portal revealed that the United States and its NATO allies have tripled the number of spy flights near Crimea since the beginning of this year.

During the week from September 18 to 24, espionage aircraft and strategic drones of the US, as well as aircraft of its NATO allies, carried out 21 flights near the peninsula, Flightradar24 data showed.

In particular, US P-8A Poseidon, EP-3E Aries II, and E-3A Sentry aircraft and UK RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft flew over the eastern coast of Romania, while US RQ-4B Global Hawk strategic espionage drones flew over the middle and eastern part of the Black Sea.

The portal showed that most of the spy flights - 16 out of 21 - were carried out by US aircraft.

In comparison, at the beginning of this year and in the spring, US and NATO aircraft conducted an average of one flight per day in the Black Sea region.

In particular, in the week from January 16 to 22, NATO aircraft carried out only seven flights, and in the week from May 15 to 21 only five.

Thus, there is a connection between the intensity of flights of Western espionage aircraft and the intensity of strikes by the Ukrainian armed forces on Crimea, Sputnik suggested.

On Friday, Russia's Defense Ministry said the historic headquarters of its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea had been damaged in what Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Crimea's largest city Sevastopol, said had been a Ukrainian missile attack. The Ministry said one of its servicemen was missing after the attack.

Ukraine claimed responsibility for the missile attack, with the Ukrainian army saying on Telegram that "Ukraine's defense forces launched a successful attack on the headquarters of the command of the Black Sea Fleet of Russia" in Sevastopol.

Ukraine claimed last week it struck a military air base near the Crimean town of Saky, while Kiev forces have repeatedly targeted the only bridge that connects the peninsula to the Russian mainland.

Russian officials said Friday that traffic across the bridge had been temporarily halted, while maritime traffic was briefly stopped following the attack on Sevastopol.