Something's going on in the S. of France. Looks like training at first, as there's an uptick in training among combat air forces globally; but, I've noticed over the past 3 weeks or so (before the Ukraine heat up) that France was flying SIGINT collection birds almost daily gathering intelligence, domestically.

So this morning (midday France) I'm noticing an AWACS and THREE SIGINT birds…two on station and when one leaves, he gets relieved. That AWACS is there for a lot of a/c that are not squawking.

This may be presented as an exercise in the press, but to this ops guy, it looks like ops. Somebody(s) are having a bad day in the touristy area of the S. of France. Just a hunch.

>>13377217

>>13377199

In a probably unrelated, but equally temporal activity…NATO (as the US) is signalling to Russia that it's watching closely. They've been putting intel collection birds up regularly on the forward facing areas (Crimea/Ukraine/Russia)…today it's the western edge of Russia with a JSTARS. Think of a JSTARS like an upside down radar that see, track, and map everything moving on the ground. For thousands of sq miles.

This is not an OPSEC issue since they're squawking and have been for at least a week, they want this to be seen. We have satellites, drones, and stealth birds for the 'secretly stealing secrets' stuff.