The Kremlin said on Wednesday that relations with the US were in a “lamentable state” and at their lowest level, after Washington accused Russia of downing one of its reconnaissance drones over the Black Sea. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there had been no high-level contact with Washington over the incident.
On Tuesday the US said a Russian fighter collided with a US Reaper drone, forcing it down into the Black Sea in what US forces called an “unsafe and unprofessional” intercept. A US European Command statement said the collision happened just after 7am on Tuesday, when two Russian Su-27 fighter jets flew up to the MQ-9 Reaper drone over international waters west of Crimea. The statement said the Russian pilots sought to disrupt the US aircraft before the collision.
The US state department summoned Russia’s ambassador over the incident. The White House said the drone’s downing was unique and would be raised directly by state department officials with their Russian counterparts.
The Russian ambassador to the US called the incident a “provocation”. Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Anatoly Antonov as saying: “We do not want any confrontation between the United States and Russia. We are in favour of building pragmatic relations.” Antonov made the comments after being summoned to the US state department. He later added: “We are concerned about the unacceptable activity of the US military in the immediate vicinity of our borders,” accusing the US of supplying intelligence to Kyiv.
The Pentagon said the drone was on a routine ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) mission. US air force Brig Gen Pat Ryders said Russia did not have the drone, but he declined to say whether Russia was seeking the wreckage so that its military intelligence could dissect it.
Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s security council, said in televised remarks on Wednesday that Russia planned to search for the drone’s debris. “I don’t know if we can recover them or not, but we will certainly have to do that, and we will deal with it,” he said, adding “I certainly hope for success.”
Russia’s defence ministry maintained that its fighters “did not use airborne weapons and did not come into contact” with the US drone. The ministry said fighters from its air defence forces were raised into the air to identify the drone, which the ministry said was heading “in direction of the state border of the Russian Federation”.
British defence secretary Ben Wallace has urged Moscow to respect international airspace.
State broadcaster Suspilne reported that the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv was struck on Wednesday by a S-300 missile fired from the Belgorod region of Russia. Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, posted to social media to say that the area hit was near a school, and there were no casualties.
Russia’s defence ministry will start a new recruitment campaign on 1 April, with the aim of recruiting 400,000 professional soldiers to the Russian army, according to a report. Radio Svoboda, citing several regional media outlets, has reported that the Russian defence ministry has already sent orders to regions indicating the number of people with whom military contracts should be signed.
Ukraine can defend a $3bn Eurobond lawsuit brought by Russia, the UK’s supreme court has declared in a long-awaited ruling. Britain’s top court ruled that Ukraine could defend the lawsuit, which was brought in 2016, on the basis that Russia’s threats of military force amounted to illegitimate pressure on Ukraine to assume the $3bn debt, Reuters is reporting. The case centres on billions of dollars borrowed from Russia from Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Russian Ukrainian president who was toppled in a popular uprising in 2014. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, described the ruling as a “another decisive victory against the aggressor”, writing on Twitter: “Justice will be ours.”
Turkey is planning to approve Finland’s application for Nato membership – independently from Sweden’s – before parliamentary and presidential elections that will take place on 14 May, two Turkish officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, will travel to Turkey on 16 March and meet with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Danish government and a broad majority of parties in Denmark’s parliament have agreed to establish a fund of 7bn Danish crowns (£822m / $1bn) for civil, military and business aid to Ukraine.
Germany’s defence industry says it is ready to ramp up its output, including the production of the kinds of arms and ammunition needed by Ukraine, but that it needs clarity about what governments want before investing in further production capacity.
China, Iran and Russia will conduct maritime drills in the Gulf of Oman starting today, the China defence ministry says. The drills will run until 19 March.
Russia has proposed suspending its double taxation agreements with what it calls “unfriendly countries” – those that have imposed sanctions on Moscow, the finance ministry said on Wednesday.
Zelenskiy and his military chiefs have agreed to keep defending the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut. Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, said the defence of Bakhmut was of “paramount strategic importance”. He said on Tuesday: “It is key to the stability of the defence of the entire front.”
AFP journalists in Eastern Ukraine have reported seeing white phosphorus fired from Russian positions on an uninhabited road leading to nearby Bakhmut. Weapons containing phosphorus are incendiary arms whose use against civilians is banned, but they can be deployed against military targets under a 1980 convention signed in Geneva. The Guardian is unable to verify these reports from AFP.
The UN was scrambling Tuesday to ensure a Ukrainian grain exports deal aimed to ease the global food crisis can continue, but its fate remained unclear days before the 18 March expiry date. Talks between top Russian and United Nations officials in Geneva ended Monday with Moscow saying it would not oppose prolonging the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative, as many had feared.
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said his country could supply Ukraine with MIG fighter jets in the coming four to six weeks. Warsaw’s commitment to Kyiv has been important in persuading European allies to donate heavy weapons to Ukraine, including tanks.
