Russia races to salvage US drone wreckage

MOSCOW: Moscow said on Wednesday it would try to retrieve the wreckage of an American military drone that crashed over the Black Sea in a confrontation the United States blamed on TWO RUSSIAN fiGHTER JETS.

Russia also warned that it would react “proportionately” to any future US “provocations” as tensions simmered and Moscow denied that its Su-27 military aircraft had clipped the propeller of the unmanned Reaper drone.

But Washington was unbowed, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin telling his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu that the US would continue flying “wherever international law allows.”

Moscow confirmed the call and said Washington had initiated it.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said US drone flights off the coast of Crimea “are provocative in nature, which creates preconditions for an escalation of the situation in the Black Sea zone,” while Kyiv suggested that the incident was evidence the Kremlin wanted to draw Washington into the war in Ukraine.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said in televised remarks that Moscow would seek to retrieve the downed drone, but was unsure if the effort would be a success.

“It has to be done. And we will certainly work on it,” he said.

But Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told journalists that any recovery effort would be difficult, as the drone likely broke up and sank in an area where the water is 4,000 to 5,000 feet (1,200 to 1,500 meters) deep.

Even if Russia was able to re

cover the wreckage, the US took “mitigating measures” to protect sensitive information.

“We are quite confident that whatever was of value is no longer of value,” Milley said.

The crash on Tuesday, which Washington said was the fault of reckless and unprofessional Russian conduct, further ratcheted up tensions between Moscow and the US’ Western allies, already soaring over the Ukraine conflict.

Patrushev said the incident was proof that the US was a direct party to fighting between Moscow and Kyiv and said Russia had a responsibility to “defend our independence and our sovereignty.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had scrambled jets after detecting a US drone over the Black Sea, but denied causing the crash, saying the aircraft had lost control.

The Pentagon said the drone was on a routine mission when it was intercepted “in a reckless, environmentally

unsound and unprofessional manner,” and White House national security spokesman John Kirby refuted Russia’s denial.

Regular intercepts

Russian intercepts over the Black Sea are common, Kirby said, but this one was particularly “unsafe and unprofessional” and “reckless.”

Ukraine said the incident was “provoked by Russia” and cautioned that it signaled President Vladimir Putin’s aim to “expand the conflict.”

“The purpose of this all-in tactic is to always be raising the stakes,” Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said on social media.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) diplomats in Belgium’s capital Brussels confirmed the incident, but said they did not expect it to immediately escalate into a further confrontation.

A Western military source, speaking

to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on condition of anonymity, said diplomatic channels between Russia and the US could help limit any fallout.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to heightened fears of a direct confrontation between Moscow and NATO, which has been arming Kyiv to help it defend itself.

Reports of a missile strike in eastern Poland last November briefly caused alarm before Western military sources concluded it was a Ukrainian air defense missile, not a Russian one.

The US uses MQ-9 Reapers for both surveillance and strikes and has long operated them over the Black Sea to keep an eye on Russian naval forces.

Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the drone was “unflyable and uncontrollable so we brought it down,” adding that the collision also likely damaged the Russian aircraft, which he said was able to land following the incident.