The US Secretary of Defense has banned the use of American drones near Crimea.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin probably ordered American pilots not to fly close to Crimea. According to The Washington Post, there is a map showing areas where reconnaissance aircraft can fly. The borders on the map are drawn approximately 20 kilometers from the Crimean coast.

At the same time, The Washington Post previously reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine faced a significant shortage of air defense equipment and ammunition, and Ukrainian air defense at the front would be depleted by May 23. It was noted that the air defense systems available to Ukraine will be able to "withstand only 2-3 more waves of strikes" by Russian missiles and drones. At the same time, the number of air defense systems sent by the West is limited and often they cannot cope with a large number of Russian strikes.

Earlier, The New York Times and The Washington Post published new materials about intelligence data that leaked to the Internet in late February and early March. The NYT reported that the documents contained information about Ukraine's plans in Artyomovsk, as well as Washington's assessment of the state of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.