Russian jet collides with US drone over Black Sea
Washington has summoned Russia’s ambassador over a rare military confrontation between the nations’ forces.
The US has summoned Russia’s ambassador after a Russian fighter jet on Tuesday dumped fuel on an American drone over the Black Sea then collided with it, causing the drone to crash.
“We are engaging directly with the Russians, again at senior levels, to convey our strong objections to this unsafe, unprofessional intercept, which caused the downing of the unmanned US aircraft,” spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
The Russian ambassador in Washington has been convened at the State Department Tuesday afternoon and the American ambassador in Moscow has registered a “strong objection,” he said.
US European Command said two Russian Su-27 fighters intercepted the unmanned MQ-9 Reaper over international waters and one clipped its propeller.
“Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner,” it said.
NATO diplomats in Brussels confirmed the incident, but said they did not expect it to immediately escalate into a further confrontation.
A Western military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that diplomatic channels between Russia and the United States would be activated.
“To my mind, diplomatic channels will mitigate this,” the source said. The United States uses MQ-9 Reapers for both surveillance and strikes, and has long operated over the Black Sea keeping an eye on Russian naval forces.
The situation in the region has become only become more tense in the past 12 months since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Western-backed Ukraine.
“Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9,” said US Air Force General James Hecker, commander of US Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa.
“In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash.” “US and allied aircraft will continue to operate in international airspace and we call on the Russians to conduct themselves professionally and safely,” he added.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said the US drone was flying over the Black Sea near Crimea and intruded in the area that was declared off limits by Russia as part of what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, causing the military to scramble fighters to intercept it.
The ministry added that the drone was flying with its “transponders turned off” and fighter jets were scrambled “to identify” it.
“As a result of sharp manoeuvre, the MQ-9 drone went into uncontrollable flight with a loss of altitude and crashed into water,” it said. “The Russian fighters didn’t use their weapons or impact the unmanned aerial vehicle, and they safely returned to their base.”
Several US Reapers have been lost in recent years, including to hostile fire. One was shot down in 2019 over Yemen with a surface-to-air missile fired by Huthi rebels, the US Central Command said at the time.
According to media reports, a US MQ-9 crashed in Libya in 2022, while another went down during a training exercise in Romania earlier in the same year.
Reapers can be armed with Hellfire missiles as well as laser-guided bombs and can fly for more than 18,000km at altitudes of up to 15,000 metres, according to the US Air Force.
AFP, Dow Jones
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