Svitlana Morenets
The United States and Russia are blaming each other for an incident which led to an American drone crashing into the Black Sea. Yesterday morning, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet collided with a US MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone. The US claimed that Russian aircraft struck the drone’s propellors, so US forces had to bring the Reaper down in international waters. Moscow has denied this, saying the US drone flew erratically and collided with the water’s surface.
US general James Hecker said the drone was conducting ‘routine operations’ when two Russian jets ‘dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner’. He also said that ‘this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash’.
The collision follows some close shaves: John Kirby of the US National Security Council said that ‘in recent weeks, there have been other intercepts but this one is noteworthy because of how unsafe and professional it was’.
The US said that ‘these aggressive actions by Russian aircrew are dangerous and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation’. President Biden and Nato members have been briefed about the incident, and the Russian ambassador has been summoned to the US State Department, which could declassify and release video it has of the collision.
Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry said its Su-27 fighter jets were not involved in the incident. It insisted that the drone crashed after a ‘sharp manoeuvre’ and that it was flying with its transponders turned off:
‘For the purpose of identifying the violator, fighter jets from the air defence forces on duty were launched into the air. As a result of sharp manoeuvring around 9:30 (Moscow time), the MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle went into an uncontrolled flight with a loss of altitude and collided with the water’s surface’.
This is not the first time Russian pilots have acted provocatively around western aircraft. A Russian Su-27 fighter jet fired a missile near an unarmed Royal Air Force plane during its routine patrol over the Black Sea on 29 September last year. Back then, Ben Wallace described the incident as a ‘potentially dangerous engagement’ and said it did show the Russian military is ‘not beyond’ deciding ‘the rules don’t apply to them’.
The Institute of War and Peace Reporting said the incident is not likely to cause an escalation to direct conflict between Russia and the US as Russian forces ‘have used coercive signalling against US and allied flights and naval vessels for decades in multiple theaters without triggering conflict’.
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