Interestingly:
The safe passage of these vessels is being ensured by the American anti-ship patrol aircraft Boeing P-8 Poseidon, which is refuelled in the Romanian sky. Additionally, the Forte12 RQ-4 reconnaissance drone provides valuable information about the maritime situation.
This is absolutely a “fuck around and you’ll find out” play. There is a P-8 officially advertising it’s presence as a protective measure. But I would honestly be shocked if there’s not a LOT more NATO hardware (likely mostly stealth, plus AWACS and ELINT) in the area as backup.
@gravitas_deficiency some of those lighnings we recently deployed to the area were probably in standby
For the curious, here’s Wikipedia’s page on the P-8.
Would be pretty wild to see one of these firing off missiles and torpedoes.
Imagine being sunk by a 737.
Sinking neutral shipping has never worked out well in world wars.
Orcz can get fucked
The Israeli ship going first is telling. Israel don’t fuck around. And considering they have Strike Eagles and Harpoons, I wouldn’t want to be on a Russian warship responsible for sinking an Israeli merchant ship.
three civilian vessels, including Ams1 from Israel, Sahin 2 from Greece, and Yilmaz Kaptan from Turkey/Georgia
There’s joke somewhere there. Let me try:
Q: What would happen if vessels from Israel, Grece and Turkey entered the Ukrainian dock during russian blockade? A: Nothing.
