Video Shows Russian Jet Targeting, Intercepting U.S. Drone Over the Black Sea
The incident happened two days ago.
The Pentagon released the video of a Russian jet colliding with a U.S. drone over the Black Sea.
The video shows the Russian jet targeting the drone:
The 42-second video shows a Russian Su-27 approaching the back of the MQ-9 drone and beginning to release fuel as it passes, the Pentagon said. Dumping the fuel appeared to be aimed at blinding its optical instruments and driving it out of the area.
On a second approach, either the same jet or another Russian fighter that had been shadowing the MQ-9 struck the drone’s propeller, damaging one blade, according to the U.S. military.
The U.S. military said it ditched the MQ-9 Reaper in the sea after what it described as the Russian fighter making an unsafe intercept of the unmanned aerial vehicle.
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Are we going to declare war over a drone, now?
Lindsey Graham sure wants to declare war over a drone.
He probably had a boner when he said we should start shooting down Russian planes.
Lindsey Graham IS a drone.
Let Lindsay lead the troops – from the front. You’ll see him change his tune.
An unmanned drone gets forced down and folks are all sorts of fired up. Where was the same anger and call for action against Iran when they sent teams and material into Iraq to help create EFP that killed and maimed US service members?
This is an uber interventionist excuse to ramp up propaganda and support for the military industrial complex to expand operations in Ukraine and rake in those sweet defense contract dollars.
People are just upset about everything connected to Ukraine. Biden’s open checking account. His graft. His grasp on reality. Everything.
There’s no gray space.
I take the old anti-bolshevik cold war stance: whatever harm can be done against the current Russian autocrat and his oligarchs-nomenklatura-boyer class the better.
I’m all for giving certain war materiel to Ukraine – small arms, light and heavy machineguns, ammo, artillery, lots and lots of low-tech RPG’s, manpads (with specific limits) up to date sat data, anti-tank mines, all caliber mortar, troop carriers, tractor-trailers, gear/kit, even US military hospital care service located in Poland.
No tanks.
No aircraft.
I’m willing to fight to the last Ukrainian. Cynical but true. They’ve gone into it with their eyes open. Since 1917 it’s been a festering wound.
The above stance really pisses people off. I don’t care. I’m not about to volt-face on this issue. Never. Not. One. Inch. Which currently makes me a rightwing-heretic.
I understand why people want nothing to do with anything Ukraine. We spent the past 20 years in Afghanistan and look what happened. It’s a travesty. Putin will not light off a nuke. Unless he’s a madman. Is he a madman? No, he most certainly is not.
Everyone gets to decide for themselves. I would personally pass on playing patty cake with Lindsey Graham and the mediocre folks staffing the Biden Admin.
I honestly don’t get why folks allow themselves to be taken in again by neocons who have proven themselves not only wrong but spectacularly incompetent time after time. It’s the same voices with the same pay masters who keep fanning the flames of US conflict and all of them somehow still profit on this buffoonery despite the catastrophic failures.
I couldn’t have said it better.
Sending in a (possibly armed?) drone to surveille a naval base would be considered mighty provocative in a sane world.
Perhaps Biden’s DoD thought the Russians would let the drone leisurely overfly the entire country before knocking it down.
You rely on facts not in evidence. The incident occurred over the Black Sea, not over land.
Speaking of “facts” in evidence…
“The U.S. military said it ditched the MQ-9 Reaper in the sea”
Is this still a confirmed LIE?
USSR to Cuba and return reconnaissance flights up and down the US east coast by Soviet TU-95 Bear bombers were common until the fall of the USSR. Few actually penetrated US airspace
However, in 1980 one of them entered US airspace and passed very close to Langley AFB in Virginia (it could be seen from the control tower). Its flight path also crossed over Hampton Roads where our carriers are built, Norfolk Naval Operating Base where many of our carriers are based, and within sight of NAS Oceana – all very sensitive areas.
The aircraft was intercepted by F-15s and escorted out of US airspace. It was not shot down, war was not declared.
When I was in the Navy in the ’70s and ’80s the Russians did this sort of thing all the time. It’s why in 1975 (I think) we signed an “Incidents at Sea” (INCSEA) agreement with them to provide protocols for handling these things without shooting at one another.
Contrary to what Graham says, Reagan didn’t get all hysterical and order us to start shooting at the Russians.
Men like Lindsey Graham hated Reagan as much as they hated Trump.
Well,,, for “fun” our jets did rolls around the Bear…. which were not appropriate but even the Russian crews liked it. Also….the Soviets would occasionally do touch and go’s at Kotzebue.
Remember in 2019 Iran shot down a US RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude drone (list price around $150m) and although a military response was considered and actually planned, Trump decided not to go ahead because of the risk of escalation.
Contrast that with the MQ-9 Reaper (list price $32m) low-altitude drone which is actually designed to be shot at, being flown around an active combat zone…. I suspect the Drums of War are being soundly thumped in the current White House right now. A Short Victorious War is just what they need to take attention off their train-wreck of an administration. The problem is modern wars tend not to be short, or have anything resembling victory at the end.
Simple point is whether the drone had its transponder on…which would be required in international controlled airspace. Transponder off…goodbye drone. So now Graham wants to start “The Drone War”…with or without George Lucas.
The prop got dinged on Potemptagon footage. So the Russian jet did have to get its nose up the backside of the drone….. an old WWII Russian battle tactic…. some one gave him the call sign “mabepek.” …funny.
Based on the video, I suspect the Su-27 pilot misjudged his pass and mushed into the drone. It was probably a tail surface that actually contacted the prop.
Remember just because the plane is pointing in a direction doesn’t mean it is instantly going in that direction. It is a fight between inertia, lift and thrust, and those things have a lot of inertia, and not a lot of thrust when they’re going that slow.
The prop is pretty close to the rear control surfaces. Hard to just take out two blades and take not out the drone completely. We old get the intercept vidro..not the crash part. True…very kinetic up there. But using a Reaper….wonder if a probing flight. Again…was it’s transponder on? If off then could be perceived as intent.
This is a warning as we continue to send in armaments. What will happen next?
Using a platform to observe and pass on tactical and targeting intel to a belligerent makes one also a belligerent.
All the talk about “international” airspace is a red herring. Russia has been withing it’s rights to do this since we became involved in assisting the Ukraine.
The Russians will recognize the tactic because it’s the same one they used in the Vietnam War when they used ‘fishing trawlers’ to shadow our aircraft carriers around the South China Sea giving advance warning to Hanoi of the timing and composition of our air strikes. Even to the point of physically interfering with our air operations by forcing the carriers to maneuver to avoid colliding with them, all in violation of the international right of way rules.
Somehow over the 8 years of that carrier war we resisted the temptation to sink or even harass them despite those aggressive acts.
Soviet spy trawler.
No fishing poles or nets, plenty of antennae though.
Another.
add:
Soviet crews quartered in North Vietnam manned SAM antiaircraft batteries. They killed American pilots.
Yes, and despite the most fevered imaginations of US anti-war folks, Russian SA-2 surface to air missiles and S-60 57mm anti-aircraft guns did not sprout from magic beans scattered in rice patties.
Nor did the MIG fighters… and more than a few of their crews.
You are right they did help the North Vietnamese. Sinking Russian ships however is not the same as downing a drone. If it had been Russian drones doing the same they would have been eliminated by the AA equipment of our fleet.
Revenge missions of doing the same are a great way to escalate to open war.
We are multiple generations removed from the Vietnam War. While Russia did the same to our pilots and some of our pilots lost their lives as a result that doesn’t mean a Russian pilot has to accept his own life will be lost from that tactic from drones.
Not only are drones unmanned they aren’t even that expensive.
Wasn’t the Moskva in international waters when sunk?
First idea: we’ve lost our country. No one can rationally argue it’s not done. (Victor David Hanson does a pretty good wrap-up:
https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/15/are-we-the-byzantines/)
Second: our ONLY hope for a future of personal and financial freedom is secession from the other half of our country:
San Francisco politician pushing for $5m reparations also wants to defund the police, thinks Honduran drug dealers are ‘human trafficking victims’ and is proposing red light districts all over California to make sex work ‘safer’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11867903/San-Francisco-politician-wants-reparations-wanted-defund-police.html
Third: the people running our country are either nuts, incompetent, corrupt – or all three. The people running THEM want a world war with which to impose draconian – and permanent laws against personal freedom in the US.
Fourth: when we do secede (no argument anymore, because it’s coming), prepare to bult a wall around the entire new nation’s borders akin to Israel’s security walls.
Fifth: prepare for secession. It’s coming, not matter how hopeful you are.
First idea: we’ve lost our country. No one can rationally argue it’s not done. (Victor David Hanson does a pretty good wrap-up:
https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/15/are-we-the-byzantines/)
Second: our ONLY hope for a future of personal and financial freedom is secession from the other half of our country:
San Francisco politician pushing for $5m reparations also wants to defund the police, thinks Honduran drug dealers are ‘human trafficking victims’ and is proposing red light districts all over California to make sex work ‘safer’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11867903/San-Francisco-politician-wants-reparations-wanted-defund-police.html
Third: the people running our country are either nuts, incompetent, corrupt – or all three. The people running THEM want a world war with which to impose draconian – and permanent laws against personal freedom in the US.
Fourth: when we do secede (no argument anymore, because it’s coming), prepare to bult a wall around the entire new nation’s borders akin to Israel’s security walls.
Fifth: prepare for secession. It’s coming, not matter how hopeful you are.
Sixth: Between voting fraud, the massive corruption in our federal government and the open border: Neither Trump, DeSantis or any other Republican is ever going to win a national election again. If we don’t secede, we’ll soon find ourselves in slavery.