Russian Security Council deputy chief urges to maintain contacts with US after drone incident

MOSCOW

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council, said on Friday that it would be "wrong to stand on ceremony" with the US in the drone incident in the Black Sea, as Washington "got brazen," but contacts should be maintained.

In a post on Telegram, Medvedev said the incident showed that there is no international convention, regulating the flights of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

According to Medvedev, Russia's Air Code stipulates the terms "prohibited areas" and "restricted areas," where flights of aircraft, including drones, are either limited or restricted.

Medvedev stressed that the restrictions, which are known to all users of the airspace, are particularly important in war time, especially considering that "the moment of entry by plane or a UAV into the territorial sea is sometimes difficult to fix."

"In general, to put it simply, the Americans got completely brazen. And it's wrong to stand in a ceremony with them. Though military contacts are needed, of course," he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said a drone, with its transponders, turned off, was detected over the Black Sea on Tuesday.

To identify the violator, fighter jets from the air defense forces on duty were engaged, and the drone, as a result of sharp maneuvering, went out of control, lost altitude, and hit the water’s surface.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon claimed that a Russian SU-27 fighter jet crashed into a US UAV in international airspace above the Black Sea, downing the American aircraft.

The US European Command also claimed that the incident occurred after a Russian jet and another SU-27 "conducted an unsafe and unprofessional intercept" of the US MQ-9 Reaper, including dumping fuel on the drone and flying in front of it "in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner."