“Russia Obtains Valuable Intelligence by Retrieving Wreckage of US Drone”

Russia has claimed to have gained valuable intelligence after salvaging the wreckage of a US drone that was downed by a Russian jet in the Black Sea last month. The MQ-9 Reaper was destroyed on 14 March in international airspace flying off annexed Crimea, causing a major diplomatic incident. Moscow claims to have recovered the drone’s “onboard electronic equipment” and “obtained invaluable information about the characteristics of a number of critical MQ-9 Reaper radio-electronic components”. The wreckage was recovered by a Russian deep-sea salvage team. The US has accused Russia of an unsafe and unprofessional intercept.