U.S., Russian military chiefs discuss drone
Talks underscore seriousness of incident
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to his Russian counterpart on Wednesday about the destruction of a U.S. drone over the Black Sea after an encounter with Russian fighter jets, which brought the two countries closest to direct conflict since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago.
It was the first call between Austin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu since October. And Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had a similar call with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces.
“We take any potential for escalation very seriously. And that’s why I believe it’s important to keep the lines of communication open,” Austin said at a Pentagon news briefing. “I think it’s really key that we’re able to pick up the phone and engage each other. And I think that that will help to prevent miscalculation going forward.”
The U.S. military said it ditched the Air Force MQ -9 Reaper in the sea after a Russian fighter jet poured fuel on the surveillance drone and then struck its propeller while it was flying in international airspace. Russia denied it caused the accident. The U.S. has said it was working on declassifying surveillance footage from the drone that would show Tuesday’s crash.
That the top U.S. and Russian defense and military leaders were talking so soon after the incident underscored the seriousness of the encounter over the Black Sea and that both sides recognized the need to tamp down the risks of escalation. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, contact between U.S. and Russian military leaders has been limited, with Russian officials refusing to take U.S. military calls in the early months of the war.
There are still questions as to whether Russia meant to down the drone, even though the moments that led up to its crash were “intentional,” said Milley, who stood alongside Austin at the briefing.
“We know that the intercept was intentional. We know that the aggressive behavior was intentional,” Milley said.
However, he said it was still unclear whether the collision was intentional. And he pushed back against Russia’s contention that the fighter jets did not come in contact with the drone.
“We have absolute evidence of the contact,” Milley said. “It’s very aggressive . ... We have video evidence and all that.”
Milley and Austin also left open the possibility that the U.S. could try to recover portions of the downed $32 million drone, which Milley said crashed into waters that were 4,000 to 5,000 feet deep.
Other U.S. officials said the U.S. doesn’t have military ships in the region, and won’t likely seek to recover wreckage. The Black Sea has been closed since early 2022 to military vessels that do not have a home port along its shores.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public, said Russia has already sent ships to the area and attempted to recover pieces of the drone.
Milley downplayed the significance of any potential recovery by Russia.
“It probably broke up. There’s probably not a lot to recover,” he said. “As far as the loss of anything of sensitive intelligence, etc. ... we would take — and we did take — mitigating measures. So we’re quite confident that whatever was of value is no longer of value.”
Milley and Austin also said the incident would not stop the U.S. from flying wherever international law allows.