let’s see | Washington publishes photos of the Russians intercepting its drone

On Thursday, the US military released footage of the Russian military intercepting its drone over the Black Sea, showing a fighter jet spraying fuel on the plane in an apparent aggressive move.

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The declassified images broadcast on the US Armed Forces Europe website last about forty seconds and show a Russian Su-27 passing twice over the drone after it approached it from behind.

On the first pass, no shock was seen between the two devices, nor anything that seemed to justify the drone’s fall. The maneuver “disrupts the video feed,” comments the US Army Europe website, which notes that the drone’s propeller “can be seen and remains intact.”

During the second pass, without establishing whether it is the same fighter or the second, the maneuver is the same but the aircraft passes very close to the drone. Then the transfer of images is interrupted. When it resumes, “the propeller can be seen again and one can see that one of the blades is damaged,” the US Air Force comments.

On Tuesday, Gen. James Hecker, commander of US Air Forces Europe, said the Su-27 fighters were intercepted by an MQ-9 Reaper that was conducting “routine operations in international airspace” and then “rammed by a Russian aircraft, resulting in its crash and loss.” “The drone.

While Russia admitted that two fighters intercepted the drone, it claimed that it was not responsible for its downing.

This is the first time since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 that a NATO country has admitted losing self-operated equipment in this highly volatile region.

Moscow claims that it wants to catch the drone in order to prove, from its point of view, the involvement of the United States in the operations in Ukraine. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday that one of the reasons for the incident was the “strengthening” of US spy operations.

For his part, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that the United States will continue to fly “wherever international law allows.”