PARIS (AP) – Russia’s military last month threatened to shoot down a French plane patrolling international airspace over the Black Sea, a sign of increasingly aggressive Kremlin behavior as the invasion of Ukraine stalls. Yes, the French defense minister said on Thursday.
Minister Sébastien Lecornu did not go into specific details about the French aircraft or aircraft involved in the shootdown threat. But he said Russia was returning to a “particularly aggressive” posture reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s actions during the Cold War.
“To give a very specific example, a month ago, while we were in the International Free Zone where we patrol, Russian air traffic control systems threatened to shoot down a French plane in the Black Sea,” he told RTL radio. I did,” he said.
“Russia’s actions in 2024 have nothing to do with what we saw in 2022 and clearly with what we saw before the invasion of Ukraine,” the minister said. “It is explained by the fact that Russia is in difficulties on the battlefield in Ukraine.”
Watch: US military releases Russian Su-27 fighter jet harassing American drone in Black Sea footage https://t.co/y0wKo9kr4z
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French Air Force pilots have been regularly patrolling NATO’s eastern flank as part of the 31-nation military alliance’s efforts to strengthen its defenses since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago on Saturday. are doing.
The French flight includes long-range patrols by AWACS surveillance aircraft. It will fly over the Black Sea coast and use powerful radar and other surveillance equipment to peer at the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia captured from Ukraine and annexed in 2014. Surveillance flights can spot missile launches, airborne bombings, and other military actions. Activities in the Ukraine conflict.
Russian pilots have sometimes made it clear that they don’t like being watched.
The British government announced that a Russian fighter jet fired a missile near a Royal Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft as it was flying in international airspace over the Black Sea in 2022. In March 2023, the U.S. government released footage of Russian fighter jets dumping fuel on a U.S. Air Force surveillance drone. The drone crashed into the Black Sea.
