US releases video or Russian fighter vs American drone

 KYIV, Ukraine -- The Pentagon has released footage of what it says is a Russian aircraft conducting an unsafe intercept of a U.S. Air Force surveillance drone in international airspace over the Black Sea.

The 42-second video, released Thursday, shows a Russian Su-27 approaching the back of the MQ-9 drone and beginning to release fuel as it passes, the Pentagon said.

The U.S. military said it ditched the MQ-9 Reaper in the sea on Tuesday after the Russian fighter jet poured fuel on the unmanned aerial vehicle, in an apparent attempt to blind its optical instruments and drive it out of the area, and then struck its propeller.

The released excerpt does not show events before or after the apparent fuel-dumping confrontation.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley have spoken to their Russian counterparts about the destruction of the U.S. drone following the encounter with Russian fighter jets.

The calls with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov on Wednesday were the first since October.

While intercept attempts are not uncommon, the incident amid the war in Ukraine has raised concerns it could bring the United States and Russia closer to direct conflict.

That the two countries' top defense and military leaders were talking so soon after the encounter over the Black Sea underscored its seriousness.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in its report of the call with Austin that Shoigu accused the U.S. of provoking the incident by ignoring flight restrictions the Kremlin had imposed because of its military operations in Ukraine.

Russia also blamed "the intensification of intelligence activities against the interests of the Russian Federation."

Polish security break up Russian spy-ring.

 

By Adam Easton

BBC News, Warsaw

A group of foreign citizens have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia, two Polish government officials have told the BBC.

Radio station RMF FM reported that Polish security services had broken up a spy network working for Russia.

Six people were detained on suspicion of having installed secret cameras to film transport infrastructure used to deliver aid to Ukraine, it reported.

RMF FM said the cell had prepared sabotage plans.

The decades-long spy conflict between Russia and the West has intensified since the Ukraine war.

Poland is one of Ukraine's strongest allies and its security forces have arrested several people on suspicion of spying for Russia since the invasion last February.

• Ukraine: The spy war within the war

According to the radio station, the group had installed dozens of cameras beside railway junctions and important transport routes in Poland's Podkarpackie province, which borders Ukraine, it said.

Some of them were found close to a small regional airport that has been converted into an international logistics hub delivering military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Military and cargo aircraft from the US and across Europe regularly fly in and out of the Rzeszow-Jasionka airport, where American troops can be seen beside their Humvees, to deliver supplies to waiting trucks that make the 100km (62 mile) journey to the Ukrainian border.

The site is considered so sensitive, Washington has deployed US Patriot air defense systems to protect the airfield.

US President Joe Biden flew into the airport on his way to his recent visit to Kyiv.

Security at critical infrastructure sites has reportedly been heightened, RMF FM said.

Poland's Interior Minister, Mariusz Kaminski, who is responsible for the Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW) - and whose officers reportedly made the arrests - is due to speak to the media about the RMF FM report on Thursday morning.

Several people have been arrested for spying in the past year. Last month, prosecutors charged a Russian citizen, who is a long-term resident in Poland, with spying for Russia between 2015 and 2022.

The man, who ran a business in Poland, was allegedly involved with historical reconstruction groups, where he made contacts with Polish military personnel.

He was arrested in April last year following an investigation that found he allegedly collected information on the organizational structure of Polish military units in the north-east of the country.

A Spanish national of Russian origin, who was identified as an agent for Russia's military intelligence agency (GRU) was arrested in Przemysl, south-eastern Poland, by the ABW last year on suspicion of spying for Moscow.

In March last year, a Polish employee of the Warsaw Registry Office, identified as Tomasz L., was arrested on suspicion of transferring operationally valuable data to the Russian intelligence services.

Additional reporting by Bartosz Kielak

BREAKING: RUSSIAN FIGHTER CLIPS US DRONE

 

A Russian fighter jet collided with an American Reaper drone over the Black Sea, bringing the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) down, the US military confirmed today.

The US military said one of two Russian fighters jet clipped the propeller of the drone, forcing the US to bring it down in the area of intense NATO military activity close to the Ukraine war frontlines, amid Russia's on-going invasion of the country.

'Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9,' U.S. Air Force General James Hecker, who overseas the US Air Force in the region, said in a statement. 'In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash,' he added, saying the incident 'follows a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots...over international airspace'.

One Western source said earlier that an investigation was underway to check whether the drone had been shot down.

It was quickly clarified that a collision had occurred between a US-made MQ-9 Reaper and a Russian Su-27 fighter jet at 7:03am CET (6:03am GMT).

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President Biden "make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people, I will take it down"

President Joe Biden said the U.S. "acted out of an abundance of caution" when shooting down three unidentified aerial objects flying over North American airspace this past weekend.

While officials are still working to recover the objects and assess them, Biden said nothing currently suggests they were related to China's surveillance program or that they were surveillance objects from other countries.

"But make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people, I will take it down," Biden said.

On the Chinese surveillance balloon, Biden added: "I make no apologies for taking down that balloon."

The president's remarks on Thursday were the first time he's commented extensively on the issue, coming more than two weeks after the Chinese spy balloon was spotted over Montana.

The balloon that traversed the continental U.S. between Jan. 28 and Feb. 4 added tension to the already fraught U.S.-China relationship. Biden was criticized by Republicans for not taking action to shoot the balloon down earlier, though he said he ordered it be taken down as soon as possible but his military advisers said it was too risky to do over land.

Since then, three unidentified aerial objects were downed by the U.S. military over three successive days -- one over Alaska, one over Canada and the third over Lake Huron in Michigan.

The administration has yet to confirm what those objects were or where they came from, though White House spokesperson John Kirby said earlier this week a "leading explanation" within the intelligence community is that the objects may have been for commercial or benign use.

Biden echoed that sentiment Thursday, saying while they still don't know for sure the objects were "most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions" for weather purposes or scientific research.

An interagency review has been underway to study broader policy implications for detecting and analyzing unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks.