KIEV – A Russian fighter jet struck the propeller of a U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, prompting U.S. forces to intentionally shoot down the drone in international waters, the U.S. military said, an incident that highlighted growing tensions between the United States and Russia over the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden was briefed on the incident by national security adviser Jake Sullivan, White House Homeland Security spokesman John Kirby said.
U.S. European Command said in a statement that two Russian Su-27 fighter jets “unsafely and unprofessionally intercepted” a U.S. MQ-9 drone operating in international airspace over the Black Sea.
He said one of the Russian fighters “struck the MQ-9’s propeller, causing U.S. forces to have to shoot down the MQ-9 in international waters.” Prior to that, the Su-27 dumped fuel and flew in front of the MQ-9 several times before the collision in a “reckless, environmentally unfriendly and unprofessional manner,” the U.S. European Command said in a statement from Stuttgart, Germany.
“This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional,” it added.
There was no immediate reaction from Moscow, which has repeatedly expressed concern about U.S. intelligence-gathering flights near Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
Amid ongoing fighting in Ukraine, a Russian missile struck an apartment building in central Kramatorsk on Tuesday, killing at least one person and wounding nine others in one of the main Ukrainian-held cities in the eastern region of Donetsk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy released a video showing the destroyed facade of the worst-hit building.
The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office and the regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, also reported on the attack and released images of the building with piles of rubble in front of it. The impact damaged nine blocks of apartments, a kindergarten, a branch of a local bank and two cars, Kyrylenko added.
The war, which erupted as Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, has resulted in many civilian casualties. Tuesday’s victims were among at least seven civilians killed and 30 wounded in 24 hours, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The casualties included a 55-year-old woman who was killed when a Russian shell hit her car Tuesday in a border town in northeastern Ukraine.
“Russian troops are attacking residential buildings, schools and hospitals, leaving towns in flames and in ruins,” Kyrylenko, the regional governor, told Ukrainian television. “The Russians mark every meter (yard) of their advance in the region not only with their own blood, but also with the (lost) lives of civilians.”
Kramatorsk is home to the Ukrainian army’s headquarters in the area. Ukrainian authorities say it has been a frequent target of Russian missile and other attacks.
A missile attack in April last year on the city’s train station, which Kiev and much of the international community blamed on Moscow, killed dozens of people and injured more than a hundred.