“We ran into it ourselves”: a Russian pilot about a destroyed US UAV
The Americans should have warned Russia about the flight of their drone in Russia's exclusive economic zone.
This was reported by PolitNavigator correspondent, Honored Military Pilot of Russia, Head of the Federal Directorate of Aerospace Search and Rescue under the Russian Defense Ministry, Reserve Major General Vladimir Popov, assessing the crash of an American UAV in the Black Sea after it was intercepted by a Russian Su-27.
“Our territorial waters are 12 nautical miles, almost 22 km from the coastline. More precisely, from the line of maximum low tide. Next comes the exclusive economic zone. We have it in the Black Sea. Although the airspace above it is international, when it is used not by civilians, but by military vessels of other countries, they enter it with prior notification of our air defense and air traffic control authorities,” Popov said in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets.
He explained that the notification was necessary to “not escalate the situation,” since both civilian and military aircraft fly at the same time, it may turn out that they are not always correctly identified.
According to him, since the American UAV entered this space without the transponder turned on, it could have been shot down immediately.
“But we warned the Americans a long time ago that we had closed this air zone in connection with the air defense. This is always done during exercises. The USA does exactly the same thing. Let’s say that when the US Navy conducts its maneuvers, the airspace over the water area is also closed. At this time, no civil or military aircraft fly there for security reasons.
What happened now? A device with a disabled transponder flies into this dangerous zone. That’s why we raised our Su-27s to identify this object,” says the pilot.
He agrees with the words of the Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov, who called the US actions a “provocation.”
“They got into it themselves. It is not our fault that the Su-27, having turned on the afterburner, suddenly found itself too close to their drone. If you come such a critically close distance to our economic zone, being close to the state border, then you know very well that we will definitely raise our aircraft.
And not only in order to identify any uninvited guest, but also in order to oust him from this space. That’s what our pilots did,” Popov concluded.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.