The Pentagon's European command yesterday published the first declassified video showing the moment two Russian planes intercept the US drone, which forced the unmanned device to fall over the Black Sea.
In the recording, which is edited, it can be seen that a Russian fighter approaches the drone, which was carrying out a routine observation mission, and pours a cloud of gas or a liquid (probably fuel oil) on it. Defense Secretary Austin Lloyd and other US military officials indicated the substance was combustible. The fighter then hit the propeller of the MQ-9 Reaper, which caused it to fall.
Russia's version is that there was no collision and attributes the incident to an error in the handling of the remotely piloted device. Moscow has described the US operation as a provocation. At 42 seconds of color images in the video, the spill can be seen. Then, according to the Pentagon, there is a lapse of 60 seconds without images (the moment of the collision) and immediately after that you can see the device with the damaged propeller.
Lloyd described the behavior of the Russian planes as "dangerous, reckless and unprofessional" on Wednesday. He reiterated that "the United States continues to operate wherever international law allows it and it is up to Russia that its planes behave in a professional and safe manner." The secretary assured that he had already spoken with the counterpart minister of the Government of Moscow. "We take any escalation very seriously and that's why I think it's so important to keep the lines of communication open. It is key that we are able to pick up the phone and talk, because this prevents any miscalculation", he remarked.
The head of Defense also singled out Moscow as solely responsible for the incident. In fact, a few hours after his appearance, the NBC network reported that three sources linked to the intelligence of the United States had concluded that the Su-27 fighters received the order to harass the drone from the Kremlin.
Although the US says it will continue its reconnaissance flights in waters it considers international, Russia claims that the area where the incident took place was declared Russian airspace so the war began in February 2022. The area of the incident is next to Crimea, a peninsula that the Russian army annexed during the first Ukrainian war in 2014.
According to the Pentagon, the Russian fleet has already reached the collision zone and is trying to recover the remains of the drone, which is said to be submerged about 56 nautical miles southwest of Crimea.
General Mark Milley, the chief of staff of the United States, acknowledged that the United States had no ships near the area, but qualified that there were friends and allies who could help recover the device. "We know where it fell and it's an area where there can be a depth of 1,500 meters, so the operation is not easy," said Milley. "It is one of our properties, it has sensitive intelligence material but we take mitigation measures. I trust that the value it could have, it no longer has," he said.
This incident aggravates relations between the two countries after almost thirteen months of war between Russia and Ukraine.
"I don't know if it was intentional or not," Milley intervened. “We know that the aggressive behavior was intentional and also that it was unprofessional and unsafe. But we have to see if the collision and the contact were intentional and it is something we have to investigate; we don't know yet, but we have evidence of contact and interception. We have video and photos", he continued.
For her part, the spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, also considered "that it is important to keep communication channels open" with Washington. The Kremlin did not want to comment yesterday on whether Russia will try to bring the remains of the American drone to the surface, as the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patruyshev, said the day before.
Meanwhile, the spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Southern Command pointed out that the movements of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea - which she described as "atypical activity" - are related to the preparations for a new missile attack against Ukraine and to " the recent events with the US drone”.
