The loss of a US drone in the Black Sea after an alleged collision with a Russian war plane has exposed the high-risk cat-and-mouse game in European skies between NATO and Russian aircraft. The US on Tuesday accused Russia of forcing down one of its Reaper surveillance drones over the Black Sea through a collision with a Russian Sukhoi-27 war plane.

Russia denied that it had deliberately brought the drone down. But it was the first such incident between Moscow and Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. "This event is unusual and remains exceptional. It remains too isolated to highlight a clear change in posture," said a French expert who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

"On the other hand, it is a return to the situation at the end of the Cold War when Western air equipment was destroyed occasionally," he added. The expert pointed to the frequent Soviet fire against American stratospheric balloons in the 1980s. Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, NATO member states have been sending aircraft over the Black Sea on a daily basis while taking care not to violate Russia's sovereign airspace, which extends up to 12 nautical miles from the coast.

These missions are partly aimed at collecting intelligence, but also sending a message to Russia that NATO is on guard as the conflict rages on its eastern flank. "NATO monitors everything that happens in the Black Sea, nothing happens there without our knowledge," Italian Colonel Michele Morelli.

"We are making sure that the Russians are well aware of our presence along the borders, just as we are well aware of theirs," said Morelli who oversees a detachment of four Eurofighter jets backing Romania. Moscow has not hesitated to send "messages" in recent years by sending its military planes not far from the sovereign airspace of European countries.

Since the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, NATO eastern flank members including the three Baltic States, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, benefit from a reinforced so-called "sky police" from NATO. In 2022, NATO air forces across Europe scrambled around 570 times to intercept Russian military aircraft approaching Alliance airspace, according to NATO.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-INP