Russian fighter jet hits US drone over Black Sea: NPR

Rescue workers from the Ukrainian emergency services work on a shell-damaged building in Kramatorsk, Ukraine on Tuesday. The attack happened hours before a Russian fighter jet collided with an American drone over the Black Sea.

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Rescue workers from the Ukrainian emergency services work on a shell-damaged building in Kramatorsk, Ukraine on Tuesday. The attack happened hours before a Russian fighter jet collided with an American drone over the Black Sea.

Roman chop/AP

STUTTGART, Germany — The U.S. military said a Russian fighter jet struck the propeller of a U.S. drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, causing U.S. forces to bring it down in international waters.

The US European Command said in a statement that two Russian Su-27 fighter jets “carried out a dangerous and unprofessional interception” of a US MQ-9 drone that was operating in international airspace over the sea. Black.

He said that one of the Russian fighters “hit the propeller of the MQ-9, causing US forces to shoot down the MQ-9 in international waters”, adding that several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew past the MQ-9 “in a reckless, environmentally friendly and unprofessional manner”.

“This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being dangerous and unprofessional,” he added.

The incident comes amid rising Russian-American tensions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The incident happened the same day a Russian missile struck an apartment building in central Kramatorsk, killing at least one person and injuring nine others in one of the Ukrainian city’s main strongholds in the eastern region of Donetsk as it battled the invasion from Moscow, officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy released a video showing gaping holes in the facade of the low-rise building that bore the brunt of the strike.