Charles Jay
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Wednesday February 15, 2023 · 11:50 AM CST
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Demonstrators display a heart made of balloons featuring colors from the Ukrainian flag as they march during a rally in support of Ukraine on Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022, in Boston.
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Balloons are showing up in multiple countries’ skies. In Ukraine, the military has been busy
shooting down Russian spy balloons flying over Kyiv. The
press service of the Kyiv city military administration reported that about six Russian balloons were spotted flying over the capital, and air defense units shot down most of them.
The balloons were apparently the cause of an
air raid alert that sounded sirens in Kyiv at 1:28 PM local time on Wednesday.
The Kyiv city military administration said: “According to information that is being specified, these were balloons that move in space under the influence of the wind. Air defense systems worked on all air targets. Most of these probes were shot down."
The military administration said the balloons could be used to carry corner reflectors and certain reconnaissance equipment with the aim of identifying and depleting Ukrainian air defenses. Ukrainian forces were analyzing the remains of the balloons to make a final determination of their type and characteristics.
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The Ukrainian air force reported earlier that a Russian reconnaissance drone and balloons with angled reflectors were
recorded in the sky over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on Sunday.
Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat told
Ukrainska Pravda on Tuesday that “The Ukrainian Air Defense uses radars to observe these air targets moving in air streams at a low speed. Fighter aircraft are constantly on duty in the Ukrainian sky. The situation is under control."
Ihnat suggested that Russia could be using balloons in order to preserve its stocks of reconnaissance drones,
Reuters reported.
"Reconnaissance drones like the Orlan-10 are now being used more sparingly (by Russia), and they thought 'Why don't we use these balloons?' So they are using them," Ihnat told Ukrainian television.
Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova briefly shut down its airspace on Tuesday because of a presumed air balloon floating over its territory,
The New York Times reported. Moldovan authorities said the airspace was reopened after the object was found to be harmless, but the government did not specify what happened to the balloon.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu recently accused Russia of trying to topple her nation’s pro-Western government through protests by pro-Russian forces. Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy had warned her of such a plot. Tensions are high in Moldova, a former Soviet republic, because Russian troops are present in the breakaway region of Transnistria, a narrow strip of land between the Dniester River and the Moldovan-Ukrainian border.
Ihnat was
asked about the aerial object that flew over Moldova, but said he did not have any relevant data. He said such balloons could theoretically fly into airspace over neighboring countries depending on the strength and direction of the wind.