The US government has released video showing a Russian fighter plane dropping fuel on a US Air Force drone, which then crashed into the Black Sea. The goal of the film was to hold Russia responsible for the accident without making things worse with the Kremlin.
The 42-second color video released by the Pentagon shows a Russian Su-27 dropping gasoline on a MQ-9 Reaper drone, possibly to block the drone’s sensors and force it to leave the area.
The Pentagon released footage Thursday of what it said was a Russian aircraft pouring fuel on a U.S. Air Force surveillance drone and clipping the drone’s propeller in international airspace over the Black Sea. https://t.co/0oO9gFNpeg pic.twitter.com/AHklyzY6ZM
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 16, 2023
On the second approach, a Russian Su-27 or the same fighter that was following the MQ-9 destroyed one of its propellers. The video doesn’t show the crash, but it does show the damage to the propeller that was caused by it.
The Russian authorities denied that its fighter jets caused the drone to crash. Instead, they said that the drone went down after making an abrupt move. While calling Russia’s actions “reckless,” the White House tried to find a middle ground to keep things from getting worse. US officials made it clear that they didn’t know if the Russian pilot hit the drone on purpose and that they were still talking to Moscow.
Associated Press reported that White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, “I can’t point to that video and say this is a deliberate attempt to escalate or… bring about Putin’s false claim that this is about the West versus Russia.” (AP).
Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said on Wednesday that they were going to pick up the pieces of a crashed drone. US authorities think that the wreckage doesn’t have any useful military intelligence on it, but they haven’t ruled out trying to salvage components of the $32 million plane that plummeted into water that’s 4,000 to 5,000 feet deep.
Even while Russia and NATO countries sometimes try to shoot down one other’s airplanes, Tuesday’s incident was the first time since the end of the Cold War that a US plane was lost in a similar fight. This has made people worry that the United States and Russia could get into a direct fight.Russia
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, says that the US and its allies have joined the 13-month-old conflict by giving weaponry to Ukraine and giving Kyiv information about the enemy.
In a separate event, Poland said it will give Ukraine 12 MiG-29 fighter jets. This makes Poland the first NATO member to meet Ukraine’s urgent request for military planes.
