Written by DEPKES.ORG March 2023
A Russian fighter jet nearly shot down an unarmed British reconnaissance plane over the Black Sea in September — a confrontation described in leaked US military documents as more significant than previously known, according to a report Sunday.
UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace told the British House of Commons in October that one of the two Russian Su-27 fighters that intercepted the RC-135 surveillance plane off the coast of Crimea “released a missile” at a distance, according to the Washington Post.
He attributed it to a “technical malfunction,” and said he’d spoken to his Russian counterparts about the incident.
But the mid-air scuffle appears to have been more serious than that, according to one of the leaked documents circulating online, the Washington Post reported.
That document referred to the incident as a “near-shoot down of UK RJ,” which is a reference to a commonly-used nickname for the British spy plane, the report said.