Russia races to salvage US drone wreckage in Black Sea

Moscow said on Wednesday it would try to recover the wreckage of a US military drone that crashed over the Black Sea in what Washington blamed on two Russian fighter jets.

Russia also warned it would respond “proportionately” to any future US “provocations” as tensions rose and Moscow denied that its Su-27 military aircraft had shot down an unmanned Reaper drone. The propeller was clipped.

But Washington balked, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin telling his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu that the US would “continue to fly where international law allows.”

Moscow confirmed the call and said Washington had initiated it.