The United States announced, on Tuesday, that it had summoned the Russian ambassador to Washington to the State Department to express his opinion "her strong protest" After a Russian fighter jet shot down a US military drone over the Black Sea.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters "We will summon the Russian ambassador to the State Department", adding that the US ambassador in Moscow also conveyed Washington’s protests in a letter to the Russian Foreign Ministry, and that US officials briefed allies and partners about the incident. Price explained "We are dealing directly with the Russians, again at high levels, to convey our strong protests over this unsafe and unprofessional interception that caused the downing of the US drone.". A spokesman for the US State Department stated that the meeting of the Russian ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, with senior US officials in the State Department will take place this afternoon, without clarifying who he will meet from the US side.
Price described the incident as: "A flagrant violation of international law", refusing to disclose the reaction US Ambassador Lynn Tracy to Moscow received from the Russians when she conveyed Washington’s protest. The Pentagon announced that a Russian Su-27 fighter jet intercepted and hit the propeller of a US MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance drone earlier today, causing it to crash into the Black Sea, on the first of its kind. An incident of its kind since Russia declared war on Ukraine more than a year ago.
For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense denied, in a statement, that its fighters shot down the American march over the Black Sea, noting that the march "It hit the surface of the water as a result of a sharp maneuver without the use of any weapons by the Russian forces". The statement added that the Russian fighters did not use airborne weapons, did not come into contact with an unmanned aerial vehicle, and returned safely to their base airfield.
