U.S. releases video of downed drone
Pentagon: Footage released Thursday provides evidence to support American version of crash
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s European Command on Thursday released the first declassified video images of the events leading up to a Russian fighter jet colliding with an unarmed U.S. reconnaissance drone Tuesday, forcing the U.S. aircraft down into the Black Sea.
The 42-second color video clip shows two high-speed passes by two Su-27 fighter jets, each time spraying a substance the Pentagon says is jet fuel on the American MQ-9 Reaper drone. The Pentagon has previously said two Russian jets were involved in the incident, and a senior military official said Thursday the footage showed one pass from each jet.
On a final pass, one of the Russian jets collides with the drone, the Pentagon says, and the camera feed is lost for about 60 seconds. The footage released by the Pentagon does not show the collision. The video then resumes, showing the aircraft’s damaged propeller, which the Pentagon said was struck by the Russian jet.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday accused Russia of “dangerous and reckless and unprofessional behavior” in blaming Moscow for the downing of the drone. Russia has denied any wrongdoing and initially blamed the crash on faulty maneuvering by the American drone operators.
Pentagon officials said Thursday the video clip provided visual evidence to support the American version of the episode, the first known physical contact between the Russian and U.S. militaries since the war in Ukraine started last year.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington, and turned the Black Sea into an effective battle zone. Russia has blockaded Ukrainian vessels within their own ports, though Ukraine has been able to export its grain across the sea under a deal signed last July between the two warring countries.
The release of the video clip comes a day after Austin had a rare phone call with his Russian counterpart in the aftermath of a collision in what senior Pentagon leaders said was an effort to move quickly to prevent the episode from worsening relations between the two superpowers.
Austin said he called Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, on Wednesday to clear the air. He declined to say whether Shoigu repeated his country’s denials that a Russian warplane swiped the American MQ-9 Reaper, causing it to crash into the Black Sea, but he said just having a conversation was important given the events.
Shoigu countered that the incident was caused by U.S. noncompliance with a flight restriction zone declared by Russia, the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement. It called U.S. drone flights off the coast of Crimea “provocative in nature.”
Russia initially denied its warplanes were to blame, saying in a statement Tuesday that after the Russian air force scrambled fighter jets to identify the drone, the unmanned U.S. aircraft maneuvered sharply, lost altitude and hit the water.
The United States and Ukraine say the unarmed American drone was flying in international airspace on a routine surveillance and reconnaissance mission. U.S. and Ukrainian officials have said they share intelligence gathered by such missions, particularly related to the threat posed by Russian warships and submarines in the Black Sea.
The video clip released Thursday captures just a slice of what Pentagon officials say happened in the roughly 40 minutes leading up to the collision. During that time, while the drone was flying at about 25,000 feet, two Russian Su-27 fighter jets made 19 highspeed passes near the Reaper, dumping jet fuel on it during the last three or four, a senior U.S. military official said Wednesday.
The collision happened on the last pass, as one of the Russian planes approached the drone at a high speed from behind. As the jet pulled up sharply, it collided with the MQ-9’s rear propeller, the official said.
The damaged Reaper drone limped along before its controllers brought down the $32 million aircraft in the sea about 75 miles southwest of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, which Russia has used as a base for launching devastating strikes.