A Russian fighter jet dumped fuel on a U.S. drone before hitting its propeller in international airspace over the Black Sea, according to a new declassified video released by the Pentagon, as tensions continue to rise between Washington and Moscow.
This latest incident of Russian fighter pilots harassing U.S. aircraft happened between two Russian Su-27s and a $32 million U.S. Air Force surveillance MQ-9 Reaper drone — which ended up getting damaged and crashing into the sea.
This was the first time since the Cold War that a U.S. aircraft went down during a confrontation with Russia.
“By targeting an unarmed, unmanned U.S. plane in international airspace, Putin’s military knowingly and deliberately violated the law,” Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton said in a statement.
“This type of behavior is reckless and will not deter the U.S. from continuing to conduct its security missions wherever the law allows,” added Moulton, a military veteran.
Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9, the Pentagon said of Tuesday’s encounter.
After the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, U.S. forces said they were forced to let the drone crash into international waters. U.S. European Command released the declassified footage on Thursday.
“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 U.S. Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of the U.S. Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa. “In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash.”
U.S. officials have expressed confidence that nothing of military value would remain from the drone even if Russia managed to retrieve the wreckage. Russian officials claimed its fighters didn’t strike the drone and said the unmanned aerial vehicle went down after making a sharp maneuver.
Russian fighter jets have been harassing U.S. aircraft for a few years now, Salem State Professor Kanishkan Sathasivam told the Herald on Thursday.
“This is clearly the worst of the cases,” he said.
He believes that Russian military officials had ordered their pilots to chase away drones, but the pilots “became a little overzealous.”
“I think the orders to the pilots were to harass and chase drones away from the area,” Sathasivam said. “But again, because of all the propaganda and all the chest thumping that happens inside Russia these days, these two pilots probably interpreted the orders that they received in a way that was unintended.”
The U.S. response to Russia needs to be much more stronger and assertive, he stressed.
“We should be telling them, ‘You do this again and we will shoot your damn airplanes down.’ That’s what we should be telling them,” Sathasivam said.
“We need to start behaving more assertively with respect to these kinds of events,” he added.
He hopes the Pentagon immediately resumes MQ-9 flights over the Black Sea.
“To challenge the Russians into trying to do something similar again,” Sathasivam said. “And to test them, and see how they’ll respond.”
Herald wire services were used in this report.
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