The US army has released video footage of the moment the US MQ-9 Reaper is attacked by Russian fighter jets.
The footage shows Russian jets dumping fuel over the spy drone which is losing video signal. In the last frames captured by the cameras on board the drone, the damaged propeller can be seen.
US European Command states that the images released are declassified footage of a Russian Su-27 aircraft conducting an unsafe/unprofessional interception of a US Air Force MQ-9 drone in international airspace over the Black Sea on March 14.
The printout of the incident was also released.
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, described the drone incident as a “hazardous episode” involving “dangerous and reckless and unprofessional” behaviour by Russian aircraft over the Black Sea. The incident is “part of a pattern of aggressive, risky and unsafe actions” by Russian pilots in international airspace, he said at a news conference on Wednesday, adding that he had “just got off the phone” with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu.
The drone went down in international waters more than 100 kilometers southwest of Crimea, US officials say, confirming to CNN that the Russians have reached the site where it crashed into the Black Sea.
The drone went down in a part of the Black Sea that is likely more than 1,600 meters deep, General Mark Milley said, making any recovery effort extremely difficult. The US also has no ships in the Black Sea, making the drone recovery operation difficult. The U.S. remotely wiped sensitive software data from the MQ-9 drone that crashed into the Black Sea to prevent Russia from collecting classified information, two U.S. officials told CNN on Wednesday.