From a leak of secret Pentagon documents regarding the war in Ukraine, it became known that the Russian military in September 2022 during the interception “almost shot down” a British RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea, writes The Washington Post.
The interception of an RC-135 near Crimea by two Russian Su-27s was reported to the British Parliament in October by Defense Minister Ben Wallace. He said that the Su-27 pilots behaved “recklessly”: one of the fighters approached the RC-135 at 15 feet (4.5 meters), and the second fighter “fired a missile at a distance.” Wallace described the launch of the rocket as a “technical failure” and did not say that the RC-135 “almost was shot down.” However, the Pentagon, according to The Washington Post, gave a different assessment of what happened.
The RC-135 is a radio and radio reconnaissance aircraft used by both the British and American armed forces.
In August 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported on the interception of a British RC-135 near Cape Svyatoy Nos on the eastern coast of the Kola Peninsula.
On March 14, an American military drone MQ-9 Reaper crashed over the Black Sea. According to the American side, the drone shot down a Russian Su-27. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in turn, stated that the drone went into uncontrolled flight and crashed “as a result of sharp maneuvering.”
