The Kremlin assures that relations with the US are at a minimum after the air collision in the Black Sea

Relationships between Washington and Moscow are growing. has worsen He has suffered a lot since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine and this past Tuesday he suffered a shock. It was a new and resounding setback after the White House accused Russia on Tuesday of having shot down one of its reconnaissance drones over the Black Sea. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov has even assured that relations between the two states are in a “very regrettable state“. Regarding the incident, the US and Russia give different and contradictory versions of what happened.
According to Peskov, there have been no high-level contacts with Washington after the air collision, limiting himself to recalling only the statement of the statement from the Ministry of Defense issued last Tuesday, in which the Russian authorities < strong>rejected any responsibility for the demolition of the device. The same document states that “as a result of a sudden maneuver around 9.30 Moscow time (6.30 GMT), the The MQ-9 unmanned aircraft entered the area. He went into an uncontrolled flight with a loss of altitude and collided with the plane.
Russian radar detected the US drone near Crimea with the transponder switched off. Washington has asserted that the two Russian fighters carried out “dangerous maneuvers“, which caused the collision between one of the planes and the drone, an incident that caused the unmanned device to fall into the waters of the Black Sea.
The Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoli Antonov, insisted this Wednesday that the drone “was moving deliberately and provocatively towards Russian territory with the transponders turned off.” “The unacceptable activity of the US military in the vicinity of our borders is cause for concern. They are collecting intelligence data, which is subsequently used by the Kiev regime to attack our military and territory.” “Antónov added after leaving the headquarters of the State Department in Washington, where he was summoned by the US authorities after the incident. According to the diplomat himself, the American MQ-9 drone that crashed in the US. In the Black Sea it is a multipurpose device “capable of carrying up to 1,700 kilograms of explosives”.
This Wednesday Antonov himself declared in the Russian media that “the US Navy and Air Force often check and attempt to probe air defenses“I'm going to look at Russia, see where there are vulnerabilities, probe where we are prepared to repel a possible attack or have any weaknesses.” He added that Russia will continue to “prevent anyone from venturing into Russian waters.” including those that surround Crimea.This peninsula is under Russian control, which considers it part of its territory, although the international community recognizes it as part of Ukraine. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has not informed Moscow., had a telephone conversation this afternoon with the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin. The talk, the first between the two officials since October 2022, took place at the behest of Washington.
Find the drone
John Kirby, the spokesman of the National Security Council of the White House, has assured the US media that the message for the Russian ambassador is the following: “You have to be carefulWhen they fly in international airspace near US assets which, let me repeat, are flying in an entirely legitimate way, carrying out missions in support of our national security interests”. “They are the ones who have to be more careful”, he reiterated in the same appearance.
For his part, from Moscow, the secretary of the Russian Security Council , Nikolai Pátrushev , has pointed out that this incident proves US involvement in the conflict with Ukraine . “Regarding the drone, the Americans continue to say that they are not participating in military operations. This is further confirmation that they are directly involved in these activities,” he said in an interview on a television channel in the United States. n Russian public.
Pátrushev himself has pointed out that Russia's intention is to find the remains of the drone in the Black Sea, with the aim of studying its secret technology. “I don't know if we'll be able to find them, but we have to (…). We'll definitely work on it. I hope we'll be successful.” Kirby, aware of the technological secrets that the device houses, sees it as unlikely that the drone will be recovered since it fell into the ground. in a “very deep area of the Black Sea”.