Phil Stewart — Reuters March 17, 2023
The United States has resumed surveillance drone flights over the Black Sea region following a Russian fighter jet intercept on Tuesday that led to the downing of a U.S surveillance drone, two U.S. officials said on Friday.
An RQ-4 Global Hawk flew a mission to the region on Friday, the officials said, with one adding that it was the first such drone flight since the Tuesday incident. Pentagon officials have repeatedly stressed this week the incident would not stop Washington from flying such missions.
Still, the downing of a U.S. MQ-9 drone on Tuesday was the first direct U.S.-Russian incident since the Ukraine war began, worsening already tense relations between Washington and Moscow as both countries publicly traded blame.
Russia has denied U.S. accusations that its two Su-24 fighter jets acted recklessly around the unmanned U.S. aircraft, and instead has blamed “sharp maneuvering” by the drone for the crash.
However, the Pentagon released a video on Thursday showing a Russian Su-27 fighter jet coming very close to the drone and dumping fuel near it, in what U.S. officials said was an apparent effort to damage the American aircraft as it flew.
It also showed the loss of the video feed after another close Russian maneuver, which the Pentagon said resulted from a Russian jet colliding with the drone.
The video ends with images of the drone’s damaged propeller, which the Pentagon said was caused by the collision, making the aircraft inoperable and leading it to crash into deep waters.
The incident over international waters was a reminder of the risk of direct confrontation between the United States and Russia over Ukraine, which Moscow invaded more than a year ago and which Western allies have supported with intelligence and weapons.
The US is the leading NATO player, and UKraine is a defacto NATO member, like Israel.
So the truth is that Russia and NATO are in a direct war. Apart from the very old, sick and the boys, the main contingents in the UKraine army, are 30,000 Poles, and around 200,000 mercenaries. The Poles have left their Polish uniforms behind, and slipped into UKrainian Nazi uniforms, and I suspect this is true for all NATO powers. They all have regular military personnel in UKrainian uniforms, and then there are the ex NATO militaries. They are all being paid silly money.
Yesterday, the Daily Fail ran a story about the under strength SAS/SBS. They band about percentages, but no actual numerical strengths, although thet admit to 11 dead in ‘recent’ conflicts (UKraine). These SF units are at 60/70%, which to ‘me’, indicates they’ve lost around 140 men in UKraine. We had the hypersonic weapon strike just inside the UKraine border, because they were using their personal phones, the ones used around the UK SAS camps, so around 100 SAS killed in this strike, total dead, around 400. Let’s say 20 were shot by UKrainian Nazis in Mariupol, and that leaves around 20 dead in ops carried out in UKraine and Russia.
The Daily Fail wants to give the impression that due to a very under strength military, the pool is so small, they can’t always get the quality. Now, I don’t buy this line. You have what you have, and you work with that, and if that means standards slide a little, so what. If you need around 600 in the SAS, & SBS, then that’s the requirement to meet all your international terrorism plans.
They say US drones are back in the Black Sea area. Not sure if they’ve modified their old routes, but there’s no question the US was at fault. I suspect Russia will shoot one down soon. Shame its not manned… Gary Powers fame, and all that.
Stunning how people instinctively or instinctually believe whatever they see on tv and are told by “authorities”.
“duh, buh, buh … I saw it on tee-vee so it must be real!”
No wonder it’s so easy to pull of scams like covid, false-flags, etc. No one asks whether the video is even real or makes any sense. It doesn’t. It defies common-sense. No one reflects upon the fact that a propeller rotates at thousands of rpm’s, and both aircraft are flying at at least 500+ miles per hour (800-900 km/hr).
It’s impossible to catch a perfect still shot of damage to a propeller, let alone record the collision, and it’s aftermath in perfect composed shots. Both planes would immediately disintegrate upon impact at such speeds.
Amazing how dumb your average dumb sheeple is.
The Predator has a wingspan of 55 feet, is 27 feet long, 6.9 feet high and carries a payload of up to 450 pounds and has a maximum speed of 135 mph (217 km/h).
The SU 27 has no valve to dump fuel in flight!