The U.S. Navy and Air Force have conducted at least 25 military intelligence flights near the coasts of Cuba since February 4.
According to an analysis by CNN, based on public data from the aerial tracking platforms Flightradar24 and ADS-B Exchange, most of the missions were concentrated off the coasts of Havana and Santiago de Cuba, with some aircraft approaching within 64 kilometers of the shore, within the operational range to gather signal intelligence.
What aircraft is the U.S. using in those operations?
The aircraft used include the maritime patrol aircraft P-8A Poseidon, the RC-135V Rivet Joint —specializing in signals intelligence— and the high-altitude reconnaissance drone MQ-4C Triton, whose unit cost is around 240 million dollars and can operate for more than 24 continuous hours at over 50,000 feet altitude.
The drone with the call sign BLKCAT5 completed its fourth documented flight around Cuba on Thursday, taking off from Mayport Naval Base in Jacksonville, Florida, and traversing the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatán Channel, and areas of the east and south of the island at an altitude of 46,950 feet and a speed of 580 knots.
Before February, this type of publicly visible operations was, according to CNN, "extremely rare" in the area near Cuba.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the findings of the analysis
The increase in flights coincides with a sustained escalation of pressure from Washington on the Cuban regime. Trump signed Executive Order 14404 on May 1, which expands sanctions against Cuba in the energy, defense, mining, and finance sectors.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Thursday sanctions against Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), the military conglomerate that controls between 40% and 70% of the formal Cuban economy.
In addition, he set June 5 as the deadline for foreign companies to cease operations with that entity under the threat of secondary sanctions.
In total, the Trump administration has imposed over 240 sanctions against Cuba since January 2026.
What is happening with Cuba and what happened with Venezuela and Iran
The article from CNN warns that a similar pattern —an increase in government rhetoric coinciding with a rise in publicly visible surveillance flights— occurred prior to U.S. military operations in Venezuela and Iran.
In Venezuela, the flights began a week after the first U.S. attack on a vessel linked to drug trafficking and continued until the days leading up to Maduro's capture at his residential complex in Caracas.
In Iran, a broad operation of intelligence aircraft monitored the southern Iranian coast prior to joint attacks with Israel. The same aircraft detected near Cuba now—P-8A Poseidon, RC-135V Rivet Joint, and MQ-4C Triton—were active in that conflict.
These aircraft have the ability to hide their presence by turning off their location beacons, which raises the question of whether Washington is deliberately sending a signal to the regime.
"Regardless of whether that signal is intentional or not by the Army or the U.S. Government, the message is likely unsettling, to say the least, for Cuban officials," the analysis concludes.
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