U.S. says Russian fighter jet hit surveillance drone over Black Sea

A Russian warplane on Tuesday struck a U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea, hitting the drone’s propeller and forcing it down in international waters, according to U.S. European Command, which called the Russian forces’ conduct “unsafe and unprofessional.”

The incident occurred around 7:03 a.m. Central European Time and involved two Russian Su-27 fighter jets and an MQ-9 Reaper drone that U.S. forces had to bring down as a result of the collision, the statement said.

“Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner,” the statement said. “This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional.”

John Kirby, a National Security Council spokesperson, said President Joe Biden was briefed about the episode. Kirby played down the incident, saying that there had been similar “intercepts” by Russian aircraft in recent weeks. Even so, he said this episode was “noteworthy because of how unsafe and unprofessional it was.”

There was no immediate comment from Russia’s Ministry of Defense. Tass, the Russian state news agency, carried a report about the collision on its website.

U.S. Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, the commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, said the unmanned aircraft was “conducting routine operations in international airspace, when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft.”

The U.S. drone was a “complete loss,” he said, adding that the collision nearly caused the Russian aircraft to crash as well.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington and turned the Black Sea, which is dominated by the Russian navy, into an effective battle zone. Moscow has blockaded Ukrainian vessels within their own ports, although Ukraine has been able to export its grain across the Black Sea under a deal signed in July between the two warring countries.

At the same time, Ukraine has attacked Russian naval vessels in the Black Sea as well as in port, most notably in April, when a Ukrainian missile sank the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, a strike that dented Moscow’s aura of naval invincibility.

The war has also galvanized NATO, not least by strengthening ties between Washington and NATO members that border Russia including Poland and the Baltic States. NATO countries have poured billions of dollars of military aid into supporting Ukraine’s territorial defense, but at the same time the alliance has attempted to avoid directly stoking confrontation with Moscow, a nuclear armed state.

One moment of crisis came in November, when a Ukrainian air defense missile that was being used to fend off a major Russian aerial assault exploded at a Polish grain plant just over the border, killing two people.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.