Video Shows Russian Jet Intercept 2 US Nuclear Bombers Days After Crash

Raptor F-22 fighter jet flying over Avalon Airport. Australia.

Photo: Getty Images

A video shared online shows a Russian fighter jet intercept two United States nuclear bombers just days removed from a prior incident in which a Russian jet had collided with an American drone.

The footage, which was captured from the Su-35 and shared by Daily Mail, shows the plane flying beside one of two B-52s as they fly over the Baltic Sea on Monday (March 20), where the drone was previously drowned last Tuesday (March 14). Russia's defense ministry said the Su-35 met the B-52 bombers as they were flying toward the Russian border, but returned to base after a tense standoff situation.

The situation took place as Russia admitted to flying two of its own nuclear bombers over the Sea of Japan for more than seven hours, which happened amid Japan's prime minister Fumio Kishida scheduled surprise visit to Ukraine, as well as China's leader Xi Jinping's ongoing meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Last Thursday (March 16), the United States European Command released declassified video footage showing the exact moment in which a Russian jet collided with an American drone.

The video, which was captured from the perspective of the drone's underside, shows two different passes taken by the jets in an attempt to spray the drone with fuel, with the second resulting in the plane colliding with the propeller at the rear of the drone. The video then briefly pixelates into color bars as the done loses communication, which EUCOM confirmed lasted for a minute, though the footage was edited for time before being shared publicly.

The video feed resumes and shows significant damage to one of the drone's propeller blades following the collision with the Russian fighter jet.

Russia vowed to retrieve the wreckage of a U.S. drone that it crashed into the Black Sea while providing a warning for American forces to cease "hostile" activity near its borders on Wednesday (March 15), NBC News reported. Representatives from Ukraine -- which has faced a yearlong invasion from the neighboring Kremlin -- referred to the incident on Tuesday (March 14) as the latest example of Russia's desire to expand conflict.

The Russian jet was reported to have harassed, crashed into and brought down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone flying over the Black Sea on Tuesday, according to the U.S. European Command via NBC News. Russia denied its planes came "into contact" with the American drone and deflected blame to the U.S., claiming they antagonized the Kremlin by conducting surveillance near Russian airspace in an effort to help their Ukrainian allies.

"I don’t know if we will be able to get it or not," said Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, via the state-run news agency Tass, but added they "will definitely" work to do it. Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, confirmed that the country had the capability to recover fragments of the American drone.

Two Russian Su-27 jets were spotted on U.S. surveillance as the drone flew in international airspace over the Black Sea, which is located along the borders of Turkey, Ukraine and Russia, as well as other Eastern European countries. The jets were reported to have "dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner," before crashing into the American drone, the U.S. European Command said in a statement obtained by NBC News.

The jet reportedly collided with the drone's propeller, causing the aircraft to come down, at around 7:00 a.m. local time. The European Command said the incident demonstrated "a lack of competence" by the Russians “in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional," and was the latest example of recent dangerous behavior committed by Russian pilots in relation to U.S. and allied planes.


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