US is ‘very comfortable’ Russia can’t ‘exploit’ drone in collision if recovered
Mike Brest
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The Biden administration is confident that if Russia is able to recover the U.S. drone that was taken down after being hit by a Russian fighter jet, there will be no intelligence opportunities to exploit.
Early Tuesday morning, two Russian Su-27 aircraft dumped fuel on and in front of a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 unmanned aircraft several times before one of them flew into its propeller over the Black Sea, about 75 miles southwest of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. The United States was forced to “essentially crash it into” the water, according to Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder.
RUSSIAN AIRCRAFT COLLIDES WITH UNMANNED US DRONE OVER THE BLACK SEA
The U.S. is “looking to see what we can do to maybe recover it,” National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said Wednesday morning on Good Morning America. “That will be challenging in the Black Sea, and it’s very, very deep water, but it’s our property.”
He said in an interview on CNN that they’re “still assessing whether there can be any kind of recovery effort mounted. There may not be.”
He explained in the Good Morning America interview they aren’t concerned that Russia would be able to exploit the MQ-9’s technology. “We’re very comfortable that should anything be taken by the Russians, their ability to exploit useful intelligence will be highly minimized,” he said. Kirby also told CNN, “We took steps to protect information and to protect, to minimize any effort by anybody else to exploit that drone for useful content.”
It’s not uncommon for Russian jets to intercept U.S. aircraft, but the collision is a first. The downing of a U.S. drone that cost as much as $32 million is significant.
U.S. officials described the behavior by the Russian pilots as “reckless” and a display of “incompetence.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price called it “a brazen violation of international law,” though he said they couldn’t “characterize” Russia’s motivations, adding, “In a sense, however, the motivations matter much less than what actually transpired, and that’s what we’re speaking to today.”
Following the crash, the U.S. summoned Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov, “and the message was, don’t do this again,” Kirby explained, though Antonov publicly rebuked the allegation. Similarly, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy conveyed a similar “strong message” to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Price said.
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“I was invited to the State Department, where I categorically rejected all the insinuations of the U.S. side,” the Russian ambassador explained. “I explained the position of the Russian Federation. I stressed that the American UAV that was moving deliberately and provocatively towards the Russian territory with its transponders turned off violated the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation, which was communicated to all concerned users of international airspace in accordance with international norms.”
Kirby said the U.S. “obviously refute the Russian denial.”