WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
US and Russian military chiefs in rare talks after drone downed
Washington's top general said the crash of a U.S. surveillance drone after being intercepted by Russian jets showed Moscow's increasingly aggressive behaviour, while Russia warned Washington that flying drones near Crimea risked escalation.
A day after the U.S. drone went down over the Black Sea, defence ministers and military chiefs from the U.S. and Russia held rare telephone conversations on Wednesday, with relations at their lowest point in decades over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow's defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, that American drone flights by Crimea's coast "were provocative in nature" and could lead to "an escalation ... in the Black Sea zone," a ministry statement said. Crimea is a peninsula that was part of Ukraine until Moscow annexed it by force in 2014.
Russia, the statement added "had no interest in such a development but will in future react in due proportion" and the two countries should "act with a maximum of responsibility", including by having military lines of communication in a crisis.
Austin declined to offer any details of the call - including whether he criticized the Russian intercept.
But he reiterated at a news conference that the U.S. intended to continue flying where international law allowed and demanded Russian military aircraft operate in a safe and professional manner.
Austin appeared before reporters at the Pentagon alongside General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had a separate call with Russia's Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
TRADING ACCUSATIONS
The U.S. military has said two Russian Su-27 fighter planes approached its MQ-9 Reaper drone during a reconnaissance mission over the Black Sea's international waters on Tuesday. The fighters harassed the drone and sprayed fuel on it before one clipped the drone's propeller, causing it to crash into the sea.
According to Russia, there was no collision. The drone crashed after making "sharp manoeuvres", having "deliberately and provocatively" flown close to Russian air space. Moscow had scrambled its fighters to identify it.
"There is a pattern of behaviour recently where there is a little bit more aggressive actions being conducted by the Russians," Milley told reporters, saying it was unclear whether the Russian pilots intended to strike the drone.
Earlier, State Department spokesperson Ned Price, speaking to MSNBC, said the incident was most likely an unintentional act by Russia.
While battles between Ukrainian troops and Russian forces raged on in eastern Ukraine, the drone incident on Tuesday was the first known direct U.S.-Russia encounter since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine about a year ago.
Russia said the episode showed the U.S. was directly participating in the Ukraine war, something the West has taken pains to avoid.
"The Americans keep saying they're not taking part in military operations. This is the latest confirmation that they are directly participating in these activities - in the war," Kremlin Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said.
The United States has supported Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in military aid but says its troops have not become directly engaged in the war, which Moscow portrays as a conflict against the combined might of the West.
Kyiv, for its part, said the drone crash showed Moscow was willing to expand the conflict zone to draw in other countries.
BAKHMUT BATTLE CONTINUES
On the ground in Ukraine, Russia kept up its push to capture the small eastern city of Bakhmut and secure its first substantial victory in more than half a year. Milley said Russia was making small advances near Bakhmut but at great cost.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his military top brass had advised reinforcing Bakhmut.
Kyiv had appeared last month to be preparing to pull out of the city but has since decided to defend it, saying it is exhausting Russia's attacking force there to pave the way for its own counter-attack.
To the north of Bakhmut, Ukrainian troops in a bombed out village near the city of Kreminna were battling to counter what they said was an attempt by Russia to undertake a giant pincer move.
"The Russians try to adapt in real time," said a member of a drone unit call-signed "Zara". "This makes great problems for us, because we have to think a couple of steps ahead - how do we successfully complete the mission and not let the enemy know how we did it."
Further south, in the Ukrainian-held town of Avdiivka, Donetsk Region police released video showing the evacuation of citizens, including 9-year-old Daryna and her parrot, Lemon.
Asked by a policewoman how long it had been since she had walked in the city, Daryna said it had been 10 months.
"I dream for the war to end soon," said Daryna, clad in a bright orange bulletproof vest and helmet.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Putin urges prosecutors to react harshly to attempts to destabilize Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that prosecutors respond harshly to any attempts to destabilize the socio-political situation in Russia.
"Prosecutors should be more active in countering extremism <...>. As I already noted at a recent meeting of the FSB board, the number of such crimes increased last year. I am asking you to respond harshly to attempts to destabilize the socio-political situation in the country," Putin said at meeting of the board of the Prosecutor General's Office on Wednesday.
Putin urged unflagging attention to such important tasks as support for prosecution in courts, protection of the environment, and monitoring of the observance of the rights of convicts.
At the end of his opening speech, Putin thanked the prosecutors for their professionalism and diligence. He expressed confidence that the prosecutors would keep the pace of work and its quality, and use all their powers to protect the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, society and the state. "Thank you for your attention and let me wish you success," Putin concluded his speech.
** Pentagon calls Moscow over drone incident
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reached out to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu, on Wednesday, for the first time in months, to discuss the incident in which an American spy drone went down in the Black Sea waters off Crimea.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Shoigu told Austin that the incident was caused by the Americans violating the airspace restriction declared by Russia, with all the proper international notifications in place. Shoigu called US drone flights off the Russian coast “provocative in nature” and risked an escalation of tensions in the Black Sea.
While Russia does not desire such a development, it will “continue to respond proportionately to all provocations,” Shoigu said. He added that the two nuclear powers “must act as responsibly as possible,” which includes keeping a military channel open to discuss any crisis.
Speaking at a Pentagon press briefing, Austin confirmed that he made the call, and said it was “important that great powers be models of transparency and communication.” However, he insisted the US would “continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows.”
The last time Shoigu and Austin spoke was in October 2022, according to AP. The top military officers also had a phone call about the matter, with US General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reaching out to his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov.
On Tuesday, the US European Command claimed that two Russian Su-27 jets conducted an “an unsafe and unprofessional intercept” of a MQ-9 Reaper drone, which was conducting an intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR) mission in international waters over the Black Sea. According to the US military, one of the planes struck the drone’s propeller, causing the operators to ditch the UAV into the water.
The Russian Defense Ministry, however, said that at no point did any of the interceptors make contact with the drone, or use their on-board weapons. The UAV stalled and crashed after executing an abrupt maneuver, Moscow said.
Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said he told the State Department that US drones have no business so close to the Russian border. The drone was reportedly just 60 kilometers off the coast of Crimea when it crashed.
The US has flown drones and other surveillance aircraft near the Russian border for over a year, providing intelligence and targeting information to the Ukrainian government – along with weapons, ammunition and money – while insisting it is not a party to the conflict. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, said on Wednesday that the drone incident was “yet another confirmation” the US was directly involved.
Reuters/RT