Russian fighter jet fires missile near British spy plane

Amid enormous tension between Russia and the West over the Ukraine War, a Moscow fighter jet fired a missile while intercepting a UK spy plane, the kind of incident that could lead to unexpected clashes.

The case was reported to the British Parliament by the country’s Defense Minister, Ben Wallace, who, before speaking, held a face-to-face consultation with the US government in Washington.

“On 29 September, an unarmed Royal Air Force RC-135 River Joint, similar to a civilian aircraft on patrol over the Black Sea, was approached by two armed Russian Su-27 fighter jets,” he said. “During the interaction, which is not unusual, one of the Su-27s dropped a missile in the vicinity of the River Joint, beyond the visual field.”

According to Wallace, London sought out his Russian counterpart, Sergei Choigu, to complain. On October 10, the Moscow Defense Ministry apologized for what it called a technical failure.

“The UK Ministry of Defense shared this information with allies and, after consultation, I resumed routine patrols, but now escorted by fighter jets. Everything is being calibrated around conflict and international law,” he said.

RC-135s have been patrolling the Black Sea since 2019. The incident, Wallace said, took place in international airspace. In 2021, there was a serious altercation in the region when the British conducted a provocative crossing with a warship through Russian-annexed Crimea waters. The response was shots from a Coast Guard boat and four bombs dropped along the route ahead by bombers.

The fact that such an incident, serious even in peacetime, occurs in the vicinity of Ukraine in the throes of the Russian invasion of February 24, shows the dangers involved in the current environment.

Fighters intercept reconnaissance and patrol planes every week in different theaters around the world, with the Baltic, Black and Western Pacific seas as some of the main stages. Also flights close to rival airspace, sometimes as quick intrusions, to test the speed of response — as China does with Taiwan every week and the Russians have taken a risk with Sweden recently.

One of the risks that is always taken is that of an accidental collision, as happened with a Chinese fighter and an American spy plane in 2011. But worse things can happen.

In 2019, a joint Russian-Chinese strategic bomber patrol flew close to South Korean airspace, which claimed invasion and dispatched F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. According to the Seoul report, they fired 380 warning shots, which Moscow denied but appears to have been the case.

A missile being “dropped,” in Wallace’s carefully imprecise definition, is a rarity. Nothing indicates that the Russians fired objectively, targeting the British plane, but the possibility of intimidation is implied.

Every day, dozens of high-altitude drones and NATO (western military alliance) electronic and visual spy planes operate in the Black Sea region, monitoring Russian movements in the war. Moscow has even accused the US of helping to direct the Ukrainian attack that drove its forces from the strategic island of Cobra, a rock off the Romanian coast, with such a drone.

Wallace tried to reassure lawmakers about the nature of his visit to Washington. Taken by surprise, she raised speculation on the subject, as it comes in the week that NATO began its exercise in simulation of a nuclear attack in Europe – focused this year on Belgium, the United Kingdom and the North Sea.

The alliance expects the Russians to begin their analogous, often broader, maneuvers by next week. This comes as the Kremlin claims it can use nuclear weapons to defend territories it annexed the day after the fighter jet incident, and which it placed under martial law on Wednesday.

“I went to the Pentagon, the State Department, among other meetings, and I asserted that we all understand our planning processes on what to do in the event of a large series of things,” said Wallace, adding unconvincingly, “I don’t think people should be alarmed.”

There have not been such sensitive movements in Europe since 1983, when the Soviet Union’s perception that it could be the target of a preemptive nuclear attack during a series of NATO maneuvers, coupled with episodes such as the downing of a Korean Airlines Jumbo in airspace of the communist regime, almost led the world to war.

The United Kingdom operates three RC-135W, an aircraft developed by Boeing in the 1970s from a structure similar to the commercial model 707. The Su-27 is the basis of the Russian fighter force, having given rise to a well-known family. in the West as Flanker, whose most modern model is the Su-35, in action in Ukraine.