Russians may have gained access to downed US MQ-9 Reaper drone – CNN
The US believes that Russians have discovered the wreckage of the downed American MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Black Sea
A US official familiar with the matter told CNN.
According to him, the debris found could be pieces of fiberglass or small fragments of a drone.
It was previously reported that Russia had reached the crash site of the American drone in the Black Sea, about 70-80 miles northwest of Crimea.
However, the Biden administration downplayed the significance of the drone wreckage or the possibility of obtaining any classified intelligence from the remains of the plane.
-We made it so that they couldn’t extract anything of intelligence value from the remains of this drone, whatever remains were on the surface of the water, – John Kirby, the National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator, told CNN on Wednesday.
After a U.S. drone collided with Russian fighter jets early Tuesday morning, drone operators took steps to wipe the drone’s sensitive software before it crashed into the Black Sea, U.S. officials said.
– All that’s left … that floats will probably be flight control surfaces and such. “Probably nothing of real value to them in terms of reengineering or anything like that, – Kirby said.
The drone fell into water that could be several kilometers deep, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
– It’s US property and we’ll leave it at that for now, but it’s probably crashed. To be honest, there is most likely nothing to restore there, – he said.
It will be recalled that the collision between the US MQ-9 Reaper UAV and the Russian Su-27 fighter jet took place on the morning of March 14.
Photo: General Atomics
