MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. The director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service SVR, Sergey Naryshkin, believes that Russia has the technical resources to find and study the debris of the US drone, lost over the Black Sea.
"The way I see it, there are such technical capabilities," he said in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin for the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program. An extract from the program was uploaded to the TV presenter's Telegram channel on Wednesday.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Russia’s Aerospace Force spotted a US MQ-9 drone in the area of the Crimean Peninsula on Tuesday morning. The drone’s transponders were turned off "in violation of the boundaries of the area where temporary airspace rules were established for the purpose of conducting a special military operation and brought to the attention of all users of international airspace and published in accordance with international standards," the Defense Ministry said.
The Defense Ministry added that the drone, as a result of sharp maneuvering, went out of control, lost altitude and hit the water surface. Russian fighter jets did not use weapons. Nor did they contact the unmanned aerial vehicle. The planes returned safely to their airfield.
According to the European Command of the US Armed Forces, one of the two Russian Su-27 jets hit the propeller of the US drone, thus causing its crash in the Black Sea. US President Joe Biden was notified of the incident.