On March 17, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova invited the United States to answer the question of how much an American MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) intercepted by a Russian fighter over the Black Sea actually cost.
Thus she commented on the article of the American newspaper Stars and Stripes which reported that Taiwan paid $555 million last year for four MQ-9B drones.
“So how much did the drone cost? Can American officials even answer this simple question?” — Zakharova wrote in her Telegram channel.
The drone incident took place on March 14. According to an initial statement by the US European Command (USEUCOM), a Russian Su-27 fighter jet hit a drone propeller during interception, after which it itself crashed in the international waters of the Black Sea. The Russian Defense Ministry said that the plane did not use onboard weapons and did not come into contact with the drone.
Republican US Congressman Matt Goetz said the loss of an MQ-9 drone in the Black Sea is a reminder of the risks associated with Washington’s support for Kiev and the danger of a clash between Russia and the United States. He also drew attention to the potential loss of technology worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The next day, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said the United States had the capability to retrieve drone fragments from the bottom of the Black Sea. According to him, technically this is a “very complex” operation, since we are talking about a depth of 4-5 thousand feet (1.2-1.5 km). However, Washington already has several options.
Meanwhile, on March 16, ForPost reported that employees of the Russian Defense Ministry discovered an American drone 60 km from Sevastopol, at a depth of 850-900 m. It is noted that there is a branch of the South Stream gas pipeline nearby.
On the same day, Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder spoke about US doubts about the extraction of valuable information by the Russian Federation from a fallen MQ-9 drone in the Black Sea.
The US has deployed another identical UAV to the crash site of an MQ-9 drone in the Black Sea and is reevaluating its operations with aircraft in the area, weighing the possible benefits and risks, CNN reported.
