What is the article even talking about? Earlier in the war, you could clearly see US KC-135 Stratotankers flying from the UK to the Polish/Ukrainian border and then flying along the border.
Now, I guess the USAF isn't flying fuel stations around just for the heck of it - there will be fighter jets or surveillance drones alongside the tankers feeding from them, but with their ADSB transponders switched off.
Same with FORTE10/11 - they just appear on ADSB trackers somewhere over Greece, fly out over the Black Sea and then vanish. Transponders switched off.
Just to add to that a bit: early in this conflict there were airborne tankers flying in patterns near the border, along with V-22 Osprey aircraft. All with ADSB transponders on. Periodically the Ospreys would disappear from ADSB for a few hours and then return. No flight path to suggest they were landing somewhere, they just disappeared. The assumption by folks monitoring this stuff on twitter is that they were shutting off their transponders, going over the border into the Ukraine, and picking up US personnel (embassy staff likely). Then when they came back over the border they’d turn the transponder back on.
Now, I guess the USAF isn't flying fuel stations around just for the heck of it - there will be fighter jets or surveillance drones alongside the tankers feeding from them, but with their ADSB transponders switched off.
Same with FORTE10/11 - they just appear on ADSB trackers somewhere over Greece, fly out over the Black Sea and then vanish. Transponders switched off.