US authorities have remotely erased confidential software from an MQ-9 Reaper drone that crashed in the Black Sea on March 14. This was reported to CNN by two sources among US officials.
Sensitive data was erased after the drone’s collision with a Russian Su-27 fighter, but before it crashed in the Black Sea, according to the channel’s interlocutors. The data concerned is not specified.
The cause of the downing of the US drone, sources told CNN, was that two Russian fighter jets dropped fuel directly in front of the drone, then one of them collided with it, damaging the propeller .
The Kremlin, commenting on US accusations of unjustified fuel spillage on a drone and pollution of the Black Sea, advised the US side “not to fly where it is not necessary”.
Why is it not eco-friendly? Maybe no one was supposed to fly there, so everything would be environmentally friendly,” Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to the President of the Russian Federation, said in an interview in Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” (quote from “Interfax”).
According to the American version, the MQ-9 Reaper drone crashed after colliding with a Russian Su-27 fighter in neutral waters above the Black Sea on the morning of March 14. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the drone crash, but said nothing about the collision.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Washington doesn’t want anyone but the Americans to get the MQ-9 Reaper drone. According to him, the American authorities “took measures” to protect the drone. In turn, the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev, said that Russia will try to lift the debris from the bottom of the Black Sea.