The United States on March 16 released a video showing an encounter between one of its surveillance drones and two Russian fighter jets over the Black Sea that resulted in the loss of the U.S. aircraft, further heightening tensions between Washington and Moscow.
The United States said the video showed that Russia was lying about the incident on March 14, which it said occurred in international airspace. In the 43-second video clip, two Russian Su-27 jets can be seen dumping fuel as they fly closely by the MQ-9 Reaper drone in an apparent attempt to blind the drone's camera.
The video recording stops after the second pass of the Russian jet. The Pentagon says the video feed was interrupted as a result of the collision. After the second flyby, a propeller on the drone appears to be damaged. The Pentagon says the damage made the aircraft inoperable and it was then crashed into the Black Sea.
Russia has accused the United States of trying to escalate tensions and has denied that its jet struck the drone as it flew near the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said the video refuted Moscow's version of events.
"It absolutely just decimates the Russian lie about what they said happened or what they said didn't happen," Kirby told reporters on March 16 in a conference call. "It's pretty darn obvious when you look at that video that (the) fighter jet hit our drone."
But he said it was not clear whether the Russian pilot intended to hit the drone.
"The video doesn't show us that," Kirby said.
He reiterated that the Russian jets were flying recklessly and that the United States would not observe any restrictions put on international airspace in the Black Sea by Russia.
The incident prompted another call between top U.S. and Russian military officials. U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke by phone on March 16 with his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement after the call.
"The military leaders discussed several security-related issues of concern," the statement said.
No further details of the conversation were released.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, on March 15. The calls between U.S. and Russian military leaders were the first since October.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in its report on the call between Austin and Shoigu that Shoigu accused the United States of provoking the incident by ignoring flight restrictions the Kremlin has imposed in the area because of its military operations in Ukraine.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the United States has seen indications that the Russians are attempting to recover the remains of the crashed drone. But he said it is likely the aircraft broke into pieces when it hit the water, and the pieces likely sank thousands of meters to the bottom of the sea.
Speaking on CNN, Price also said that the U.S. military "took steps to mitigate the intelligence value" of the drone before it crashed.