Russian warplane hits U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea

MQ-9 Reaper drone

At 7:03 a.m. European Central Time, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet hit an American Reaper surveillance drone that was flying in international airspace over the Black Sea and caused it to crash into international waters.  It’s not clear from Pentagon remarks on the incident if the “hit” was caused by a missile or by the Russian aircraft itself, although the language used by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby describing the encounter as “unsafe and unprofessional” indicates the latter. Kirby said the Russian combat aircraft had dumped fuel on the drone “in a reckless, environmentally unsound” manner in advance of the drone’s downing. 

Kirby went on to say that there had been other “intercepts” of drones by Russian aircraft before.  The Black Sea, dominated by the Russian navy, has been the scene of confrontations and conflict between Russia and Ukraine since the war began last February.  Russia is blockading shipments from the Ukrainian port of Odessa, with the exception of grain shipments, which it lets through as part of an agreement signed last July by Ukraine and Russia.  Ukraine is widely known as “the breadbasket of Europe” because of the wheat crops it grows in the flatlands of its central and eastern regions.

It is not known what the U.S. surveillance drone was doing over the Black Sea, but it is likely that it was providing reconnaissance of the Russian navy which the U.S. shares with the Ukrainian military.  There is a chance that the drone was crossing the Black Sea on the way to surveilling the area around Kherson, but that was not confirmed by either the Pentagon or National Security spokesman Kirby. 

The MQ-9 Reaper drone has a wingspan of 66 feet and is powered by a turboprop engine.  The drone is capable of carrying 1,500 pounds of munitions, including Hellfire missiles and JDAM and Paveway laser-guided bombs.  The surveillance cameras on the Reaper drone are said to be capable of reading a license plate from two miles away.  Colliding with the propeller of such a large, winged aircraft is unlikely to happen accidentally.

The fact that there have been other encounters between U.S. drones and Russian combat aircraft indicates at least two things:  the drones are being used frequently for surveillance of the Russian military in Ukraine, and the Russians are aware of this and very, very upset about it.

Look for more such incidents to be reported in the future.