A Russian fighter jet collided with a US Reaper drone and forced it down into the Black Sea, in what US forces called an “unsafe and unprofessional” wiretapping. A US European Command statement said the collision occurred shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday, when two Russian Su-27 fighter jets flew up to the MQ-9 Reaper drone over international waters west of Crimea. The statement said the Russian pilots tried to jam the US aircraft before the collision.
The US State Department called Ambassador of Russia over the drone incident. The White House said the drone downing was unique and would be addressed directly by State Department officials with their Russian counterparts.
The Russian ambassador to the United States called the incident a “provocation.” Russian state news agency RIA quoted Anatoly Antonov as saying: “We don’t want any confrontation between the US and Russia. We are in favor of building pragmatic relations.” Antonov made the comments after being summoned to the US State Department.
The Pentagon said the drone was on a routine ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) mission. US Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryders said Russia did not have the drone. But he declined to say whether Russia was looking for the wreckage so its military intelligence could dissect it.
Russia’s defense minister claimed that its warplanes “did not use airborne weapons and did not come into contact” with the US drone. The ministry said fighter jets from its air defense forces were launched into the air to identify the drone, which the ministry said was heading “in the direction of the state border of the Russian Federation”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his military commanders have agreed to continue defending the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut. Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, said that the defense of Bakhmut was off “major strategic importance”. He said: “It is the key to the stability of the defense of the entire front.”
AFP journalists in eastern Ukraine have reported seeing white phosphorus fired from Russian positions on an uninhabited road leading to nearby Bakhmut. Weapons containing phosphorus are firearms whose use against civilians is prohibited, but they can be used against military targets under a 1980 convention signed in Geneva. The Guardian cannot verify these reports from AFP.
The United Nations struggled on Tuesday to ensure that a Ukrainian grain export deal aimed at easing the global food crisis can continue, but its fate remained unclear days before the March 18 expiration date. Talks between top Russian and UN officials in Geneva ended on Monday with Moscow saying it would not oppose an extension of the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative, as many had feared.
At least one person was killed and three people were injured in the shelling of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region on Tuesday morning, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. said the Ukrainian president six high-rise buildings were damagedadding: “The evil state continues to fight against the civilian population. Every strike that takes an innocent life must result in a legal and fair sentence that punishes murder.”
The Russian-installed “acting governor” of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region has said that the frontline position in the region is stable, but that Russian forces are strengthen their positions in the area awaiting an attack. Yevgeny Balitsky told Russia’s state news agency Tass: “Now all military operations are concentrated in the area of Vuhledar and Bakhmut, therefore it is calm in our direction at the moment.”
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said his country could supply Ukraine with MIG fighter jets in the next four to six weeks. Warsaw’s commitment to Kyiv has been important to convince European allies to donate heavy weapons to Ukraine, including tanks.
Russian artillery ammunition shortage has probably exacerbated “to the extent that extremely punitive shell rationing is in force on many parts of the front”, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in its latest intelligence update. “This has almost certainly been a key reason why no Russian formation has recently been able to generate operationally significant offensive action,” it said.
Moscow has said it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, after reports the court is expected to make seek their first arrest warrants against Russian individuals over the war in Ukraine. The prosecutor will come to court reportedly formally open two war crimes cases and issuing arrest warrants for several Russians deemed responsible for mass abduction of Ukrainian children and targeting Ukrainian civil infrastructure.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said that 32 countries have joined a coalition supporting the creation of a special tribunal against Russia for the crime of aggression against Ukraine. Ukraine, the EU and the Netherlands have publicly supported the idea by a special committee. Russia has denied allegations of war crimes, including the deliberate targeting of civilians in Ukraine.