US drone crashes after colliding with Russian jet

Tuesday over the Black Sea, a Russian fighter jet dropped gasoline on an American drone, which was then struck by the Russian fighter jet and crashed, according to the US military.

The unmanned MQ-9 Reaper was stopped by two Russian Su-27 aircraft over international waters, one of which clipped its propeller, according to US European Command.

“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 declaration corroborated an earlier account by AFP of an incident involving a drone produced in the US nearby.

Russian intercepts over the Black Sea were regular, but this one "is significant because of how risky and unprofessional it was, in fact reckless that it was," US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told media in Washington.

The incident was confirmed by NATO ambassadors in Brussels, who added that they did not anticipate it to quickly escalate into another altercation.

Under the condition of anonymity, a Western military source told AFP that diplomatic lines between Russia and the United States may help minimise any fallout.

“To my mind, diplomatic channels will mitigate this,” the source said.

Fears of a direct conflict between Moscow and the Western NATO military alliance, which has been supplying Kyiv to aid in its defense, have grown since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of last year.

In November of last year, reports of a missile attack in eastern Poland temporarily raised concerns before Western military sources determined that the missile in question was an air defense missile from Ukraine, not one fired by Russia.

No quick response came from Moscow.

Source