WASHINGTON, US
A Russian Su-27 jet fighter collided with an American MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, the US military's European Command said.
"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."
"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.
The statement confirmed an
earlier report by AFP of an incident involving a US-made drone.
Moscow denied causing the
crash of the drone.
"As a result of a sharp
manoeuvre... the MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle entered an uncontrolled flight
with loss of altitude and collided with the surface of the water," the
Russian Defense Ministry said, adding that the two Russian jets had no contact
with the US aircraft and did not use their weapons.
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 to AFP 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.
"US and allied aircraft
will continue to operate in international airspace and we call on the Russians
to conduct themselves professionally and safely," Hecker added.
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 1 100
miles at altitudes of up to 15 000 metres (50 000 feet), according to the US
Air Force.
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