Moscow’s ambassador to Washington calls incident a ‘provocation’
Washington/Kyiv: The US military said a Russian fighter plane clipped the propeller of one of its spy drones and made it crash into the Black Sea on Tuesday in the first such direct encounter between the two powers since Russia invaded Ukraine over a year ago, a report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says
The Russian defence ministry gave a different account of the indient and Moscow’s ambassador to Washington said his country viewed the incident involving a US MQ-9 drone and Russian Su-27 fighter jet as a provocation.
The United States conducts regular surveillance flights in the region and has supported Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in military aid, although it has not become directly engaged in the war.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Voldoymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday night, March 14, that military commanders were unanimously in favour of defending the eastern frontline, including the ruined city of Bakhmut, which has been under siege by Russia for months.
“The main focus was on … Bakhmut,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “There was a clear position of the entire command: Strengthen this sector and destroy the occupiers to the maximum.”
Zelenskiy dismissed three regional governors, including Luhansk in the east, Odesa on the Black Sea in the south and Khnelnitskiy region in the west, but no reason was given in the announcement by the government’s parliamentary representative.
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said Russia was “on the offensive” across the entire frontline in the eastern Donetsk region, with battles also raging around Kreminna, Bilohorivka and Sprine north of Bakhmut.
The United States conducts regular surveillance flights in the region and has supported Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in military aid, although it has not become directly engaged in the war.
The defence of Bakhmut was important because a “large amount of enemy material is being destroyed … A huge number of troops are being killed and as of today, the enemy’s capacity to advance is being reduced”, she told Ukrainian television.
On the diplomatic and economic fronts, talks continued to extend a deal to allow grain shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports that is due to expire this week, the United Nations and Turkey said. The Kyiv government rejected a Russian push for a 60-day renewal, half the term of the previous renewal.
DRONE CRASH
Two Russian Su-27 jets carried out what the US military described as a reckless intercept of the American spy drone while flying in international air space. It said the Russian fighter jets dumped fuel on the MQ-9 – possibly trying to blind or damage it – and flew in front of it in unsafe manoeuvres.
After around 30 to 40 minutes, at 7.03 am (0603 GMT), one of the jets then collided with the drone, causing it to crash, the US military said.
Russia has not recovered the drone and the jet was likely damaged, the Pentagon said.
“In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash,” U.S. Air Force General James Hecker, who oversees the US Air Force in the region, said in a statement.
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