WASHINGTON/KYIV - In the first such direct encounter between the two countries since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, the U.S. military claimed a Russian fighter plane clipped the propeller of one of its spy drones, causing it to crash into the Black Sea.
The Russian ambassador to the United States stated that his nation viewed the incident on Tuesday involving a Russian Su-27 fighter jet and an American MQ-9 drone as a "provocation." The Russian defense ministry provided a different account of the incident.
Although it has not intervened directly in the conflict, the United States regularly conducts surveillance flights over the area and has provided Ukraine with military assistance worth tens of billions of dollars.
The Ukrainian military reported on Wednesday that Russia had shelled numerous settlements along the eastern front in the previous 24 hours, including a rocket attack on a civil infrastructure in the Kherson region that resulted in civilian casualties.
The battlefield reports could not be verified, and Russia denies targeting civilians.
According to Tuesday night's remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, military leaders were unanimously in favor of defending the eastern front line, which included the destroyed city of Bakhmut that has been under Russian siege for months.
"The main focus was on ... Bakhmut," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. The entire command had a very clear position: "Strengthen this sector and kill as many occupiers as possible."
Luhansk in the east, Odesa on the Black Sea in the south, and Khmelnytskyi in the west all had their governors removed by Zelenskiy.
Russian forces are "on the offensive" across the entire front in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar, with battles also raging around Kreminna and other towns north of Bakhmut.
The defence of Bakhmut was important because a ‘‘large amount of enemy material is being destroyed .
She said on Ukrainian television, "The enemy's ability to advance is being reduced as a great number of troops are being killed."
The United Nations and Turkey reported that negotiations to extend a deal allowing grain shipments from Ukrainian Black Sea ports, which was set to expire this week, were still ongoing. The 60-day extension, which would have been half as long as the previous renewal, was rejected by Ukraine.
Two Russian Su-27 aircraft recklessly intercepted an American MQ-9 spy drone in international airspace by fueling it and performing dangerous maneuvers in front of it. The drone crashed after about 30 minutes when one of the jets hit it. The drone has not been found by Russia, and the jet most likely sustained damage. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was reported to have crashed after "sharp maneuvering," according to the Russian defense ministry, which denied that any of its aircraft had made contact with it. Near the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, the drone had been spotted.
Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov was summoned by the US State Department to discuss an incident over the Black Sea. The American plane, according to Antonov, "deliberately and provocatively" moved towards Russian territory while having its transponders off. It was the first time that the West and Russia had direct contact, according to Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he invaded Ukraine to protect his country from a hostile West determined to annex historically Russian lands.
Russia, according to Ukraine and its Western allies, is waging an unprovoked war of conquest that has destroyed Ukrainian cities, claimed thousands of lives, and forced millions more to flee their homes.