Originally Posted by
Buster11
Perhaps one that A. Van could help with here. Has anything been published on 'his side' about what one assumes must have been extensive Soviet and Warsaw Pact ferreting and overflights of NATO territory? Could the Mystic-A and -B conceivably have uses other than investigating the ozone layer? I don't recall reports at the time of any incursions or 'crashes', but did they happen? Is there anything covering the activities of SOXMIS in West Germany?
Hello, Buster:
I tried search in Russian using some key words, but did not find anything substantial. I assume that as far as land of European NATO countries was concerned, such flights were not needed and local interlligence could provide enough information. Also, USSR did not have high altitude (like U-2) aircraft, and high-speed ones (like MiG-25) did not have enough range.
What was indeed of interest were US air carriers. Tu-95 and Tu-16 were actively searching for them in the North Atlantic and Pacific, especially before the era of spy sattelites. I could not find any formal reports, but there are many stories on the Net. E.g.,
https://www.proza.ru/2010/11/03/1015