LAST UPDATE | 16 Mar 2023

THE PENTAGON HAS released footage of what it says was a Russian aircraft pouring fuel on a US Air Force surveillance drone and clipping its propeller in international air space over the Black Sea

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, apparently 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 struck the drone’s propeller, damaging one blade, according to the US military.

The military said it ditched the MQ-9 Reaper in the sea after what it said was an unsafe intercept of the unmanned aerial vehicle.

The released excerpt does not show events before or after the apparent fuel-dumping confrontation.

Russia said its warplanes did not strike the drone and claimed it went down after making a sharp manoeuvre over the sea.

Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said yesterday that Moscow would try to recover the drone fragments.

Today, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the decision was up to the military.

“If they consider it necessary to do so in the Black Sea for the benefit of our interests and our security, they will do it,” he said.

US officials have expressed confidence that nothing of military value would remain from the drone even if Russia managed to retrieve the wreckage.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Mark Milley have spoken to their Russian counterparts about the destruction of the drone.

The calls with Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Russian General Staff General Valery Gerasimov yesterday were the first since October.

While intercept attempts are not uncommon, the incident amid the war in Ukraine has raised concerns it could bring the US and Russia closer to direct conflict.

The Russian Defence Ministry said in its report of the call with Austin that Shoigu accused the US of provoking the incident by ignoring flight restrictions the Kremlin had imposed because of its military operations in Ukraine.

Moscow also blamed “the intensification of intelligence activities against the interests of the Russian Federation”.

Such US actions “are fraught with escalation of the situation in the Black Sea area”, the Defence Ministry said, warning that Russia “will respond in kind to all provocations”.

UN investigation into Ukraine war

A United Nations investigation into human rights violations in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion of the country has not concluded that a genocide has taken place, its chair has said.

“We have not found that there has been a genocide within Ukraine,” Norwegian judge Erik Mose, the head of the investigation team, told a press conference in Geneva.

However, “we have noted that there are some aspects which may raise questions with respect to that crime … but we have not yet put in any conclusion here”, he said.

Asked about specific accusations of genocide, including the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to areas under Russian control, Mose said: “We are absolutely aware of these possibilities, and we will pursue this if our mandate is being prolonged.

“Based on the evidence that we have been able to achieve since actually August last year until now, we have to go step by step and that is the reason why we are at the stage where we are.

“Where we will go depends on what we will find.”

In its first report, the investigative team created by the UN Human Rights Council a year ago determined that Russia had committed a vast array of violations since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s forced transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children to areas under its control amounts to a war crime, the investigators said, also warning of possible crimes against humanity.

The three-person commission headed by Mose was created last year, and the UN Human Rights Council will decide early next month whether to extend its one-year mandate.

Additional reporting by AFP