Russian experts will try to recover the wreckage of the American MQ-9 Reaper drone which crashed in the Black Sea on March 14. On this subject informed Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolai Patrushev in the program “Moscow. Kremlin. Cheese fries.”
“I don’t know if we can get it or not, but we have to do it, and we will definitely do it. I, of course, hope for success,” Patrushev said.
According to him, the incident with the drone confirms the “direct” participation of the United States in the military operations in Ukraine.
The director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, said in turn that Russia had the technical capabilities to recover and study the wreckage of the drone. At the same time, he refused to answer the question whether this work had already begun.
Pavel Bednyakov / POOL / TASS
According to Naryshkin, the United States is “very actively” conducting reconnaissance in the Black Sea region using “all means of space, visual and radio reconnaissance”.
“We know and understand in detail what the objectives of the Americans are, <...> and we try to identify the objects that interest them the most," the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service said.
In the United States, they doubt that the drone can be found and recovered
White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby speaking to CNN doubted that the downed MQ-9 Reaper will be located.
“The part of the Black Sea where he fell is very, very deep,” Kirby said. The United States has not yet decided whether it will make efforts to recover the wreckage of the drone, he said.
Alex Brandon/AP
Kirby added that the United States had tried to downplay any reconnaissance value of the drone in case it fell into the wrong hands.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said US planes will continue to fly “where international law permits”. Incident with MQ-9 Head of Petagon appointed “is part of a series of aggressive, risky and dangerous activities in international airspace.”
Drone crash in the Black Sea
The MQ-9 Reaper multipurpose drone crashed in the Black Sea on the morning of March 14. The Pentagon said it collapsed after a “dangerous and unprofessional interception” by two Russian Su-27 fighter jets.
According to the US Department of Defense, the planes repeatedly dumped fuel before colliding with the drone and flying past it “in a reckless and unprofessional manner”. One of the Su-27s crashed into an MQ-9 propeller, after which the US aircraft lost control and had to be flooded in international waters, the department said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the MQ-9 fell as a result of its own sudden maneuver and Russian fighters did not come into contact with it.
After the incident, the US State Department protested to Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov.
