This is the moment a Russian fighter jet dumped fuel on a US drone over the Black Sea. The video which was taken from the drone and released by the US military shows the Russian jet release a cloud of fuel which covers the drone for a short while.
The incident caused American forces to bring down the surveillance drone after a propeller was also struck during the incident. Russia's Defence Ministry has denied there was any collision and say the U.S drone was flying near the Russian border into an area that was declared as off limits.
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As reported in the Mirror, the MQ9 Reaper drone was collecting information on Moscow’s forces in the east of Ukraine and off the coast when the Russian pilots are said to have dumped fuel on it in mid-air. It is also believed that two Russian planes flew close to the drone and one of them collided with the propeller of the US craft.
The Russian Defence Ministry say their military scrambled fighters to intercept the drone and said the U.S. drone manoeuvred sharply and crashed into water. They insisted its warplanes didn't fire their weapons or hit the drone.
It is not known where the drone was brought down. The US military say the "unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians" nearly caused the fighter jet and drone to crash and US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the incident which was branded “reckless’ by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
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He added that U.S. State Department officials would be speaking directly with their Russian counterparts and "expressing our concerns over this unsafe and unprofessional intercept."
State Department spokesman Ned Price called it a "brazen violation of international law." He said the U.S. summoned the Russian ambassador to lodge a protest and the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, has made similar representations in Moscow.
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