The US data on the incident within the Black Sea differs considerably from the Russian account. Moscow emphasizes that the US drone was not shot at or in any other case attacked by the Russian jets. There was no contact, quite the drone fell into the ocean after a pointy maneuver of its personal.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder emphasised: “One of the Russian SU-27 jets touched the propeller of the MQ-9 drone. The US forces then had to crash the drone over international waters. Before the collision, the Russian Jets dumped fuel on the drone multiple times and flew in front of the drone in a reckless and unprofessional manner.”
Drone “full of sensitive reconnaissance technology”
According to the previous Supreme Commander of NATO Forces in Europe, Wesley Clark, the US will attempt to recuperate the downed drone from the Black Sea earlier than the Russian aspect probably does: “We handle these drones with the utmost caution”, so Clark on the tv channel CNN. “We have not yet made these drones available to the Ukrainians because they are full of sensitive reconnaissance technology. In this case, we may have been able to delete the stored data by remote control. I hope we did that,” Clark continued.
The US MQ-9 drones are unmanned aerial automobiles about 10 meters lengthy and 20 meters wingspan. They are primarily used for reconnaissance, however will also be outfitted with rockets.
Russian ambassador speaks of “provocation”
The US authorities has summoned Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov to the US State Department. In a written assertion launched by the Russian embassy in Washington, Antonov accused the US of accumulating intelligence for Ukraine to make use of to assault Russian forces and Russian territory. Antonov known as the drone incident a “provocation” and known as on the US to cease operations close to the Russian border. At the identical time, the ambassador pressured that the Russian aspect didn’t search a confrontation with the United States.
The spokesman for the US National Security Council, John Kirby, rejected Russia’s earlier account of the drone crash and warned Moscow towards an escalation. The United States has the fitting to conduct reconnaissance flights over worldwide waters, Kirby pressured. According to Kirby, Washington is contemplating releasing footage of the US drone colliding with one of many Russian jets to help the American account of the incident.
Kirby: “Keep the Conversation Channels Open”
In the CNN interview, Kirby emphasised on the similar time that Washington remains to be searching for dialogue with Moscow: “That’s why we want to keep the channels of communication open so that we can continue to exchange very directly and openly what our concerns are.”
So far, each side have adopted the road: sharp rhetoric, however little interest in an precise, not to mention navy, escalation.
Source: www.nationalturk.com
