As the United States warned Russia they need to be more careful with their military aircraft, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he expects there will be more incidents like the one that saw a US Reaper surveillance drone crash into the Black Sea.
Key points:
- A White House spokesman says the drone that sank may never be recovered
- The incident happened on the same day a Russian plane was intercepted by UK and German jets after flying too close to Estonian airspace
- Ukraine’s Foreign Minister said these incidents would happen as long as Russia controls Crimea
On Tuesday US Air Force General James Hecker called it an “unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians”, while Russia denied hitting the drone, suggesting it had crashed due to “sharp manoeuvring”.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Kuleba described the incident — in which the US said a Russian SU-27 fighter plane clipped the propeller of one of its Reaper drones before it was crashed — as “routine”.
He also said it was his belief this type of incident would continue to occur as long as Russia controlled Crimea, which the nation illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“As long as Russia controls Crimea, these kinds of incidents will be inevitable and the Black Sea will not be a safe place,” Mr Kuleba told the BBC.
“So the only way to prevent such incidents is actually to kick Russia out of Crimea.”
His comments came after White House spokesman John Kirby told CNN that US officials had told Russian ambassador Anatoly Antonov, Russia needed to show more caution.
“The message that we delivered to the Russian ambassador is that they need to be more careful in flying in international airspace near US assets that are, again, flying in completely legal ways, conducting missions in support of our national security interests,” Mr Kirby said.
“They’re the ones that need to be more careful.”
Asked by the BBC if he thought the incident might make Ukraine’s allies more cautious about operations in the area, Mr Kuleba said he believed that would be a mistake.
“If the West wants to demonstrate its weakness, it should certainly demonstrate its cautiousness after an incident like this, but I don’t have a feeling that this is the mood in capitals,” he replied.
“The mood is not to escalate but nor is the mood to lean under the pressure … of Russia.”
Drone could be retrieved
While the US remained firm on the issue the Kremlin also did and maintained its stance that the incident was the fault of the US, but said despite worsening relations it was open to dialogue with the United States.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there had been no high-level contact with Washington and that bilateral relations were “at their lowest point, in a very lamentable state” but that “at the same time, Russia has never refused constructive dialogue, and is not refusing now”.
Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, told Russian reporter Pavel Zarubin that the United States was “very active” in space, visual and radio reconnaissance in the region.
“We have a detailed knowledge and understanding of the intelligence aims of the United States using technological means, and we try to identify the objects that are of greatest interest to them,” he said in a video posted online.
Mr Kirby also said the MQ-9 surveillance drone has not been and may never be recovered, given the depth of the Black Sea where it went down.
“I’m not sure that we’re going to be able to recover it,” Mr Kirby said.
“Where it fell into the Black Sea — very, very deep water. So we’re still assessing whether there can be any kind of recovery effort. There may not be.”
However, Kremlin Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said Russia would “have to” begin work on a recovery effort.
“I don’t know whether we will be able to retrieve it or not, but that it has to be done,” he told the Rossiya-1 TV channel.
“And we’ll certainly work on it. I hope, of course, successfully.”
He added that the drone’s presence over the Black Sea was “the latest confirmation” that the US was “directly participating” in the war in Ukraine.
NATO jets intercept Russian plane
The Black Sea drone incident occurred on the same day as a pair of UK and German jets intercepted a Russian plane that strayed too close to Estonian airspace.
Two Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled to escort a Russian Ilyushin Il-78 Midas air-to-air refuelling tanker after it failed to signal its intentions to Estonian air traffic control, according to a statement from the UK government.
The tanker had been travelling between St Petersburg and Kaliningrad, the administrative centre of the Russian semi-exclave Kaliningrad Oblast, which sits on the Baltic Sea in northern Europe.
The escort mission was a routine operation, but it marked the first time jets from the British and German air forces had conducted such a mission together, the UK government said.
Four RAF Typhoon jets are currently based in Estonia as part of a long-established joint NATO air policing mission, the BBC reports.
The RAF is preparing to take over the operation from the German Air Force in April, and until then the countries are conducting joint operations.
Wing Commander Scott Maccoll, the commander of the RAF’s 140 Expeditionary Air Wing, which took part in the operation, said it was “great to see the UK and German elements operate as one team”.
“As NATO continually adapts its structures and workforce, today shows us the next evolution,” he said.
ABC/Reuters