Russian defence minister says Washington’s ‘increased’ spying led to drone incident

Lloyd Austin says incident would not deter US from flying where nternational laws allowed

The US military’s heightened intelligence activities against Russia’s interest and non-compliance with its declared flight restriction zones led to the crash of a US drone in the Black Sea, the Russian defence minister said.

Kremlim’s top diplomat Sergei Shoigu and the US defence secretary Lloyd Austin held a rare telephone conversation on Wednesday, a day after the US MQ-9 Reaper drone surveillance went down.

Washington said the drone was damaged by a Russian Su-27 fighter jet colliding with its propeller after a pair of Su-27s spent around half an hour trying to disrupt the path of the Reaper by dumping fuel on it in “a reckless” manner.

However, Moscow has denied that its two aircraft made direct contact with a US drone and insisted it dropped after making a “sharp manoeuvre”.

“Shoigu indicated that the cause of the incident was the actions of the United States in non-compliance with Russia’s declared flight restriction zone, established in connection with the conduct of the special military operation, as well as increased intelligence activities against Russia’s interests," the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.

In a warning, Mr Shoigu said that American drone flights by Crimea’s coast "were provocative in nature" and could lead to "escalation of the situation in the Black Sea zone”, the ministry statement said.

Crimea is a peninsula that was part of Ukraine until Moscow annexed it in 2014.

"Shoigu indicated that the cause of the incident was the actions of the United States in non-compliance with Russia’s declared flight restriction zone, established in connection with the conduct of the special military operation, as well as increased intelligence activities against Russia’s interests," it added.

"Russia is not interested in such a development of events, but it will continue to respond proportionately to all provocations,” he said, according to the statement.

Mr Austin declined to offer any details of the call, including whether he criticised the Russian intercept.

But he raised the issue of “a pattern of risky and aggressive” behaviour by Russian military pilots in a news conference following the call.

He reiterated that the incident will not deter the US from continuing to fly where international law allowed and demanded Russian military aircraft operate in a safe and professional manner.

“We will continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows,” he said in a press conference at the Pentagon alongside General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had a separate call with Russia’s Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

Earlier, state department spokesperson Ned Price appeared to downplay the incident, speaking to MSNBC and said the incident was most likely an unintentional act by the Russian government.

In another exchange of stern warnings, Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said a deliberate attack on Russian aircraft in neutral airspace would be considered as a declaration of war against Moscow.

"A deliberate attack on a Russian aircraft in neutral airspace is not just a crime under international law, but an open declaration of war against the largest nuclear power,” he said according to Tass.

“An armed conflict between Russia and the United States would be radically different from the proxy war the Americans are waging remotely against us in Ukraine," he reiterated Russia’s concerns.

The drone incident on Tuesday was the first known direct US-Russia encounter since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine about a year ago.

The incident has sparked fresh tensions between the countries as relations were at their lowest point in decades over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has said it will attempt to salvage the debris of US MQ-9 surveillance drone from the seabed. But White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that it is “impossible” for Russia to obtain any useful material from the downed drone.

And he added: “It’s our property and they have no business recovering anything.”