The announcement that arrived last night from “Military Informant”, one of the most informed Russian telegram channels (sometimes in real time) on what is happening in Russian airspace and aviation, is peremptory: «A Russian MiG-31 fighter shot down a US Air Force reconnaissance drone over the Black Sea. Presumably it is an RQ-4B Global Hawk high-altitude reconnaissance drone.” Shortly afterwards, an update: “Yes, the accident has now been confirmed.” A few minutes earlier, in a more cryptic but equally obvious way, the same thing had been written by “Fighterbomber”, another channel very close to the command of the Russian Air Force: «Congratulations to all those involved. Good guys! We are now waiting for the approval of the United States regarding the “unprofessional actions”. Now there is greater turbulence in the Black Sea. Let’s see if it is a continuous thing or if it was a once-in-a-lifetime event.”
In the past, these two channels have rather rarely written less than informed things. In reality, at the time of writing, there is no confirmation from official American sources of the killing. The only source who talks about it, Reuters correspondent Idris Ali, who follows the Pentagon, citing an anonymous representative of the US Department of Defense, writes on , the link he posted is deleted). But the story raises concern among various Western intelligence agencies, and fits perfectly into the context of the strong tensions of the last 24 hours between Moscow and Washington. On Sunday 23 June, shrapnel from an Atacms missile launched by the Ukrainians towards the Belbek military airport in Crimea landed on the beach of Sevastopol, killing four swimmers and injuring around 150. Although several ultranationalist Russian Z channels blamed Moscow for the lack of shelters anti-missile and siren warnings on the Crimean beaches, the Kremlin was quick to accuse the United States, warning that the event would not remain without consequences. «According to the Ministry of Defense – wrote a note from Moscow – American Atacms missiles were used, armed with cluster bombs to increase their lethality. All flight data was entered by US specialists based on their satellite reconnaissance data and an American Global Hawk reconnaissance drone was flying in the skies near Crimea.”
It would not be the first time that an “accident” – i.e. the shooting down, or damage, of an American drone over the Black Sea – has occurred. In March 2023, a Russian Su-27 fighter damaged an American MQ-9 Reaper UAV, which was then sunk in the Black Sea. But in this case, Russian sources are unambiguous in speaking of an immediate shooting down. And Italy is also involved, for various reasons. The first is that this type of drone is usually taken off from the Italian base in Sigonella, where control and maintenance also takes place. The second is that, according to Flightradar data, in the last two days only one American Global Hawk drone flew over the Black Sea: around 9 am (Moscow time) on June 23rd it appeared on the radar in the area of the military airport of Sigonella, but at 6am on 24 June (i.e. early in the morning on Monday) he duly returned to base. We attach the screenshot of the tracking above.
What may have happened next is not yet clear. A mystery that further weighs down the tension between Moscow and the United States – and could also be an episode of hybrid, non-kinetic, Russian warfare. Although evidently Washington has so far always tried to lower the level of any emphasis on conflict coming from the Kremlin clique.
