Oct. 15 (UPI) — U.S. border officials said Wednesday that more than a dozen undocumented migrants via Russia and former Soviet satellite states were taken into custody near Puerto Rico.
Border authorities intercepted a 41-foot sailboat carrying 13 migrants near Combate Beach on Puerto Rico’s west coast Sunday afternoon, officials said. Air and Marine Operations, part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, tracked the vessel as it approached the shoreline with assistance from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Puerto Rican Police’s Fuerzas Unidas de Rapida Accion unit.
“This successful interdiction demonstrates the unwavering commitment and vigilance of the Michel O. Maceda Marine Unit in protecting our nation’s borders,” Christopher Hunter, director of the Caribbean Air and Marine Branch, said in a statement.
Agents found 13 people aboard that included 10 unidentified men from Uzbekistan, a woman from Kyrgyzstan and two Russian men.
None of the undocumented suspects had official papers allowing legal entry to the United States.
Agents escorted the small yacht to the Michel O. Maceda Marine Unit for inspection, and the migrants were taken into custody and transferred to Homeland Security Investigations for processing, officials noted, “in good condition.”
Officials at America’s border agency added that the operation highlights ongoing efforts by CBP and the Caribbean Border Interagency Group to prevent illegal maritime activity and strengthen border security in the Caribbean region.
Activists on the Global Sumud Flotilla shared a video they said showed Israeli vessels approaching the fleet to intercept it before reaching Gaza. Such interceptions by Israeli forces in international waters are considered illegal.
Watch: Moment Israeli navy intercepts activist boats carrying aid to Gaza
The Israeli navy has intercepted boats carrying aid to Gaza and detained the activists aboard, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said several vessels that form part of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) had been “safely stopped” and that those aboard were being transferred to an Israeli port.
It added that the navy had told the vessels to change course as they were “approaching an active combat zone”.
The GSF described the interception as “illegal” and “not an act of defence” but “a brazen act of desperation”.
The group has alleged that one vessel within the flotilla was “deliberately rammed at sea” and said additional boats were hit by water cannons.
“It clearly reveals the extreme lengths to which the occupier will go to ensure Gaza remains starved and isolated,” GSF wrote on social media.
“They will attack a peaceful civilian mission because the success of humanitarian aid means the failure of their siege.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the flotilla had been informed it was “violating a lawful naval blockade” that covers the waters next to Gaza – though it is unclear if the boats had entered the blockade zone.
It posted footage from the interception showing Thunberg sitting on the deck of a boat, being handed water and a jacket by a member of the Israeli military.
Livestreams from the boats suggest not all of the 44 vessels have been boarded and evacuated.
The Israeli government, which has branded the GSF’s attempt to transport humanitarian aid to war-torn Gaza as “provocation”, said: “Greta and her friends are safe and healthy.”
The GSF said multiple ships including the Alma, one of the main vessels, as well as the Surius and the Adara, had been intercepted and boarded.
Prior to that, it accused the Israeli military of “intentionally damaging ship communications, in an attempt to block distress signals and stop the livestream of their illegal boat boarding”.
It said the flotilla had been 70 nautical miles from Gaza’s shoreline when the intervention had occurred. The group had hoped its vessels would arrive in Gaza on Thursday morning.
People have gathered Greece, Italy, Tunisia and Turkey to protest Israel’s interception of the flotilla.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has expelled all remaining Israeli diplomats from the country in response to the interception, and denounced it as an “international crime by Netanyahu”.
Petro also terminated Colombia’s free trade agreement with Israel, which has been in place since 2020, and called for the release of two Colombians who were aboard the flotilla.
Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Harris called the reports “concerning” and said he expects Israel to uphold international law, with at least seven Irish citizens among the detained, including Sinn Féin senator Chris Andrews.
Israeli foreign ministry
The Israeli foreign ministry released footage of its forces detaining Swedish activist Greta Thunberg from one of the boats
Israel has already blocked two attempts by activists to deliver aid by ship to Gaza, in June and July.
While the Israeli government has characterised the flotilla as a “selfie yacht”, Thunberg has pushed back against that criticism, telling the BBC on Sunday: “I don’t think anyone would risk their life for a publicity stunt.”
International aid agencies have been attempting to get food and medicine into the Palestinian territory but note Israel is restricting the flow of supplies.
Israel claims it is attempting to stop those supplies falling into the hands of Hamas. It and the US have backed an alternative food distribution system, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) which the UN refuses to co-operate with, describing its set-up as unethical.
A UN-backed group confirmed last month that there was famine in Gaza and the UN’s humanitarian chief said it was the direct result of Israel’s “systematic obstruction” of aid entering the territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called this an “outright lie”.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in a statement that France had ensured “that any possible boarding operation would take place under the best possible security conditions”.
Italy’s foreign minister said he had been reassured by Israel that its armed forces would not use violence against the 500 people aboard, including French and Italian politicians.
Antonio Tajani said: “The boarding was planned, we are talking about it… with [Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon] Saar so that there would be no violent actions on the part of the Tel Aviv armed forces, and this has been assured to me.”
Simon Harris, Ireland’s tánaiste (deputy prime minister), said his country “expects international law to be upheld and all those on board the flotilla to be treated in strict accordance with it”.
In Gaza, Israel is stepping up its assault on Gaza City as Hamas weighs its response to a new US plan to end the war. Arab and Turkish mediators are understood to be pressing Hamas for a positive response, but a senior Hamas figure has said the armed group is likely to reject it.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz issued a final warning to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the city to evacuate southwards, saying those who remained during the offensive against Hamas would be “terrorists and supporters of terror”.
The International Committee of the Red Cross stated that “under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected whether they stay or leave Gaza City”.
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Footage has emerged taken from the cockpit of a Russian fighter jet, showing a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane fitted with a secretive radar pod during a mission over the Black Sea. The video underscores the growing importance of the P-8 for intelligence gathering in critical theaters such as the Black Sea, an active war zone, where a tense standoff continues between NATO and Russian assets, on the margins of the conflict in Ukraine.
The meeting between a Russian Sukhoi fighter jet and U.S. Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft/ASW plane over the Black Sea. Video reportedly from today.
The P-8A is equipped with the AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor multifunctional AESA radar, deployed under… pic.twitter.com/F6xo80Hyq4
— Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (@Archer83Able) August 27, 2025
The video in question was published on the Russian aviation-connected Fighterbomber channel on Telegram and shows a mission that reportedly took place today, August 27. Publicly available flight tracking data does show a Navy P-8 mission over the Black Sea today, although we can’t be sure it was the same aircraft involved.
A tweet with embedded flight tracking data shows a P-8 flight from today, out of Naval Air Station Sigonella, Italy, and flying for four hours over the Black Sea, including at a distance of around 50 nautical miles from Russian airspace, off the Black Sea city of Sochi:
It’s also unclear what Russian aircraft was involved, although it is certainly a fighter from the Flanker series, perhaps a Su-35S, a type that has been noted flying such interception missions in the past.
What’s most notable about the video, however, is the extended antenna for the AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor, or AAS, the elongated pod that is sometimes seen fitted under the P-8’s fuselage. As we have discussed in depth in the past, this is a powerful radar system that entered development in 2009 and began testing in 2014. This may even be the first time that the pod has been observed in the Black Sea. It’s also very rare to see the antenna extended, usually it is tucked tightly below the aircraft’s fuselage in its stowed position.
P-8A 169336 returns from a short flight, showing off a new kit.
It Is now equipped with the AN/APS-154 AAS, and the Lockheed Multi User Objective System. This is now the second P-8 in the Navy fleet with this setup. pic.twitter.com/0qxklubbvw
The footage provides an especially good and very rare view of how the pod is deployed in flight, using the Special Mission Pod Deployment Mechanism (SMPDM). By extending the pod well below the fuselage while in flight, the radar’s fields of view are no longer obstructed by the P-8’s two engines.
A P-8A equipped with the AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor, as indicated by the red arrow. @cvvhrn
Details about the AAS pod and its capabilities remain strictly limited. We know that it was developed by Raytheon and that it is based around an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. This has a moving target indicator (MTI) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) functionality, making it suitable for tracking moving targets below at sea and on land. It is able to detect and make SAR imagery of ships at considerable distances and can also collect very high-quality radar imagery of objects of interest for further analysis, even at night and in poor weather.
In addition, the pod may well have secondary electronic warfare capabilities. You can read much more about this sensor and what it offers to the Navy’s Poseidon fleet here.
The Black Sea, with its combination of maritime activity and proximity to an intense ground war in Ukraine, is an ideal theater of operations for the AAS-equipped P-8.
“The AAS is also specifically designed to work in littoral regions where it might have to scan both water and land areas simultaneously. Traditional surface search radars are typically optimized for one environment or the other, or have dedicated modes for each, and generally have difficulty covering both at the same time.”
Since before the full-scale Russian invasion, an armada of NATO intelligence-gathering aircraft has been patrolling over the Black Sea, as well as elsewhere in proximity to Russian and Ukrainian borders. RC-135 Rivet Joints and RQ-4 drones, to name just two, have long been staples in the airspace over the Black Sea.
Two P-8As assigned to the “Grey Knights” of Patrol Squadron 46 on the flight line at Naval Air Station Sigonella, Italy, in November 2020. U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Zachary Dalton
As for the P-8, its value in the region, especially when equipped with the AAS pod, is obvious, providing the ability to monitor, with great acuity, various objects of interest, including moving ones, both in the water and on land.
Having the AAS-equipped P-8 in this area, combined with the aircraft’s existing electronic intelligence, networking and data-sharing capabilities, makes for a very powerful standoff targeting platform. Data can be fed to other assets in the air, at sea, or on land. It can detect ships moving from great distances, even small ones, and than ‘image’ them using its powerful radar. Detecting and cataloging enemy air defense emissions and radar mapping shore and inland targets is all in a day’s work for this highly unique aircraft.
An EP-3E Aries II prepares to take flight within the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operation before its retirement. U.S. Navy
The latest encounter between a P-8 and a Russian Flanker seems to have passed without incident, although there is certainly a precedent for some more tense intercepts over the same waters.
In September 2022, a Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter fired an air-to-air missile toward a U.K. Royal Air Force RC-135W Rivet Joint over the Black Sea, although the details of exactly why that happened remain somewhat unclear.
According to one account, a Su-27 pilot misinterpreted an instruction from a radar operator on the ground and thought he had permission to fire on the RC-135. The Russian pilot achieved a missile lock on the British aircraft, then fired a missile that “did not launch properly.”
In March 2023, an encounter between a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone and two Russian Su-27 fighters over the Black Sea resulted in the drone being lost. A video released by the Pentagon soon after seems to confirm that one of the Su-27s struck the drone’s propeller, although it remains unclear to what degree that action was deliberate or a misjudgment.
U.S. Department of Defense video showing part of the encounter between a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 and two Russian Su-27 fighter jets over the Black Sea on March 14, 2023, that resulted in the drone being lost:
The video of the P-8 being intercepted by a Russian fighter once again highlights the relatively intense activity by surveillance aircraft and the fighters that monitor them in some of the tensest skies in Europe.
A group of military aircraft, seen here on a mission scrambled by NORAD in July of 2024. NORAD reported Sunday it sent fighters to intercept a Russian spy place operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ. File Photo by NORAD/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 25 (UPI) — The United States military reported it scrambled a response contingent over the weekend after a Russian spy plane flew close to American airspace.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, reported Sunday it detected an IL-20 COOT reconnaissance aircraft flying through the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ.
NORAD responded by sending two F-16 fighter jets, an E-3 Sentry radar plane and two refueling tankers to intercept and make a visual confirmation.
The Russian aircraft stayed within the ADIZ and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace.
The ADIZ is located within international airspace but lies close enough to American and Canadian sovereign airspace to require “the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security,” according to NORAD.
NORAD also noted such activity in the ADIZ is a regular occurrence that does not constitute a threat.
A Russian IL-20 COOT was also detected in the ADIZ last week on Wednesday and Thursday and took the same responsive measures.
Video from Al Jazeera Mubasher showed the crew of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s Madleen in life jackets with their hands raised as the ship was about to be raided by Israeli forces. Communications with the vessel were cut shortly after.
