Russian vessels have already arrived at the drone crash site in the Black Sea, a U.S. defense official tells Fox News.
Almost immediately after the MQ-9 drone was clipped by a Su-27 fighter jet and downed into the water, Russia sent ships to search the debris field.
“They wasted no time,” the defense official told Fox News.
US VIDEO SHOWS MOMENT RUSSIAN FIGHTER JET COLLIDES WITH US DRONE
U.S. European Command on Thursday released video of a Russian Su-27 fighter jet colliding with a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea, March 14. A screenshot shows a jet dumping fuel. (US European Command)
However, a separate U.S. official with knowledge of the situation is not confident Russia will be able to obtain any of the drone debris.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley said Wednesday the area of the Black Sea in which the drone landed is between 4,000 and 5,000 feet deep.
RUSSIA TO TRY RECOVERING DOWNED US DRONE AS US VOWS TO ‘PROTECT OUR EQUITIES’
U.S. European Command on Thursday released video of a Russian Su-27 fighter jet colliding with a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea, March 14. (US European Command)
He made the remarks during a Pentagon press briefing alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Milley speculated that the drone debris has likely sunk to “significant depths” already, making recovery a difficult prospect.
RUSSIA TO TRY RECOVERING DOWNED US DRONE AS US VOWS TO ‘PROTECT OUR EQUITIES’
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, right, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley attend a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on March 15, 2023, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told CNN on Wednesday that the U.S. military has already moved to “protect our equities” and that they did not want anyone else “getting their hands on [the drone].”
“Without getting to too much detail, what I can say is that we’ve taken steps to protect our equities with respect to that particular drone, that particular aircraft and its United States property,” Kirby said. “We obviously don’t want to see anybody getting their hands on it beyond us.”
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Later on, Kirby took a distinctly less hopeful tone.
“It has not been recovered, and I’m not sure we’re going to be able to recover it. I mean, where it fell into the Black Sea, very, very deep water,” Kirby told CNN. “So we’re still assessing whether there can be any kind of recovery effort mounted there. There may not be.”
The U.S. Navy does not have any ships operating in the Black Sea, a spokesperson for U.S. European Command told Fox News on Wednesday.
