Russia will search for the remains of an American drone that fell into the Black Sea

The Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Pátrushev, assured this Wednesday that Russia will search for the remains American drone which fell into the Black Sea on Tuesday after an incident with two Russian fighters SU-27.

“I don’t know if we will manage to find them, but we have to (…). We will certainly devote ourselves to it. I hope we will succeed,” Patrushev told TV channel Rossia-1.

The US has already expressed its desire to return the drone MQ-9 reapersalthough National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN that it won’t be easy, since the device He fell into a “very deep area of ​​the Black Sea”.

A government spokesman said US authorities had done “everything in their power” to minimize the intelligence-level risks of a foreign power having a downed drone in its possession.

The Kremlin on Wednesday denied contact with the United States about the incident and referred it to the Defense Ministry, which Washington held responsible for what happened. It also said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been informed of the incident, without elaborating.

While Washington condemned that a Russian fighter jet hit the propeller of its drone, the Ministry of Defense Russia has denied any contact between its SU-27s and the drone in the international waters of the Black Sea.

“As a result of a sudden maneuver around 09:30 Moscow time (06:30 GMT), the MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle entered an uncontrolled flight with a loss of altitude and collided with the surface of the water,” the Russian military said in a statement.

The official note states that “the weapons on the Russian fighters were not used” and that the SU-27s “did not come into contact with the aircraft and safely returned to their airfield”.

He the Russian ambassador in the USA it was confirmed by Anatolij Antonov his country “is not interested in conflict” and called for a “more cautious” attitude given the tension in the Eastern European region.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, assured that the incident shows that President Putin intends to expand the war.

The US has informed NATO of the incident, which it describes as a deliberate act by Moscow, which does not like the allied presence near the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea as the Russian military fights in Ukraine.