• RQ-4 Global Hawk drone flew a mission to the region on Friday.
• The incident will not prevent Washington from performing such missions, says the pentagon.
• The incident served as a reminder of the danger of direct conflict between the US and Russia.

Two US sources stated on Friday that the US has resumed surveillance drone flights over the Black Sea region following a Russian fighter jet intercept on Tuesday that resulted in the downing of a US surveillance drone.

According to officials, an RQ-4 Global Hawk drone flew a mission to the region on Friday, the first such operation since the Tuesday incident. Pentagon officials have repeatedly stated this week that the incident will not prevent Washington from performing such missions.

Yet, the downing of a US MQ-9 drone on Tuesday was the first direct US-Russian encounter since the start of the Ukraine war, exacerbating already strained relations between Washington and Moscow as both governments publicly exchanged blame.

Sharp maneuvering

Russia has refuted US charges that its two Su-24 fighter fighters operated dangerously around the unmanned US aircraft, instead blaming the disaster on “sharp maneuvering” by the drone.

The Pentagon, on the other hand, published a video on Thursday showing a Russian Su-27 fighter jet flying very close to the drone and dumping gasoline near it, in what US officials claimed was an apparent attempt to harm the US aircraft as it flew.

The video also showed the video feed being lost following another near-Russian maneuver, which the Military claimed was caused by a Russian jet colliding with the drone.

The video concludes with views of the drone’s damaged propeller, which was caused by the impact, rendering the aircraft inoperable and causing it to crash into deep waters, according to the Military.

The incident in international waters served as a reminder of the danger of direct conflict between the US and Russia over Ukraine, which Moscow invaded more than a year ago and which Western allies have supported with intelligence and weaponry.

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