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Moscow has recovered parts of a surveillance drone the US had to down in the Black Sea last week after an encounter with Russian jet fighters, according to a report on Wednesday.
Russian military conversations between personnel on ships and in aircraft discussing the MQ-9 Reaper were captured by radio hobbyists beginning about eight hours after the drone was damaged after being struck by a Russian fighter jet, the New York Times reported.
The audio recordings, picked up by the hobbyists while monitoring public airwaves, indicate that debris, including parts of an engine’s case, nose, wing and gas tank, were recovered.
There’s no sign that the Russians were able to retrieve any sensitive technology, but the report points out that the recordings contained audio interference and military code words that make them hard to understand.
MQ-9 drones, used mainly to gather intelligence, often carry an array of high-tech components, including sensors, communications equipment and precision weapons.
But Defense Secretary Mark Milley said last week that the US military took “mitigating measures” to ensure that valuable intelligence would not be recovered by foreign actors.
“So we are quite confident that whatever was of value is no longer of value,” Milley told reporters.
He also noted that the $30 million drone crashed in international waters in the Black Sea that were about 4,000 or 5,000 feet deep, making any recovery effort extremely difficult.
The Pentagon released video that shows the drone was flying in international airspace when it was approached by two Su-27 warplanes.
They attempted to spray the MQ-9 with jet fuel and one of the jets collided with it, damaging its propeller, which caused US officials to crash it.
The encounter, the first between the US and Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine last February, has roiled already tense relations between Moscow and Washington.
US military officials say they will continue drone flights in the region.
On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Rybakov, addressing the downing of the MQ-9, warned the US that drone flights in Russian-restricted airspace over the Black Sea will provoke “countermeasures.”
He said the US should not have entered an area designated off limits as part of its “special military operation,” which is how Russia characterizes its invasion of Ukraine.
“The Americans demonstratively, cynically and in outright public form deny the legitimacy of these steps and state their intentions to continue actions of this kind. They are, as the saying goes, ‘asking for’ our counter-measures and we warn them against the attempts to play on nerves and test our patience,” Ryabkov said, according to Russian news site Tass.
“In any case, Russia’s security will be 100% ensured by all means available to us. And no American drones, be them reconnaissance, strike, strategic or whatever other UAVs, can shake our determination,” he continued.
Rybakov’s warning against the US flying drones comes as reports indicate that Russia launched a barrage of exploding drones in an overnight attack on Kyiv that killed at least four people at a student dormitory.
The attack in Rzhyshschiv, a city south of the Ukrainian capital, damaged a high school and two dormitories.
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