Russian pilots involved with US drone crash given bravery awards
The Russian government awarded bravery awards to the Russian pilots involved with the downing of a US drone. Russia’s Ministry of Defense praised the pilots for stopping the drone. Their justification? These pilots stopped the drone from violating the boundary that the Kremlin set up. However, the US and its allies saw these Russian pilots as committing an irresponsible act in international airspace. Senator Mark Kelly, who was a Navy pilot during Operation Desert Storm, indicated that the collision resulted from Russian pilot incompetence.
From Fox News:
Last week, the Kremlin issued state awards to the fighter jet pilots responsible for downing the U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea earlier the week prior. In an official statement, the Ministry of Defense commended the pilots for preventing the drone from “violating the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby spoke with reporters Wednesday about the matter while making fun of the Russian government for portraying the pilots as heroes.
“I don’t know of another military in the world, another air force in the world that would award a pilot for smashing into a drone,” he said during a White House press briefing. “If that’s bravery, I guess they have a different definition of it.”
Russia said the drone was flying with its transponders off. Kirby said U.S. officials don’t know if the pilot intentionally crashed into the aircraft “but he did.”
“Either way, in the Navy I grew up in, you don’t want to hit anything. Hitting anything is bad for you,” he said. “I have no clue why they would give a bravery award to a pilot who was at worst maliciously putting himself and U.S. property at great risk and at best, just an idiot.”
Fox News has information related to this story here and here.
Category: International Affairs, Russia
Well, hey, it is the Russkies’ biggest victory lately.
The Kremlin sounds a lot like the Loonie crowd screeching over fathers with 3-year-old daughters using the unisex bathrooms. “Hey, this is space is us, we declared it so!”
Both arguments have equal validity. And deserve equal respect.
Any truth to the rumor that the drone pilot got a Purple Heart Secretly, or a PHS, as someone set off an air-bag when she hit the deck?
Peter the Great must be weeping in shame…
Knowing aircrew as I do, this will haunt the MiG driver for the rest of his life.
“So Heroic Comrade Pilot Ivanovitch, tell us again how you got run over by the capitalist American drone!”
That story plus a five-spot will get you a beer ’round these parts.
My main question about this whole affair, wouldn’t getting in front of the drone and dumping fuel, thereby causing turbulence, bin a better technique?
I’m sure Ivan has mastered the art of making rear view mirrors by now.
But what do I know… other than how to be a well-armed gourmet MRE chef that can dig a fancy hole?
The fuel dump was show- what comes out of the fuel dump vent is essentially vaporized kerosene. Flammable as hell but harmless to an aircraft. Here’s an Aussie F-111 to demo.
Nothing does a dump and burn like an Aardvark!
On my first TDY to Nellis AFB we were flying night sorties on the Nellis range complex I got to see an F-111 fire up a fuel dump post aerial refueling using its afterburner just west of Student Gap a little after midnight local time. We were about 60-80 nm away and it was a spectacular sight in the pitch dark.
I suspect the Ruskie was trying to dump fuel on the Reaper with the intent of torching it via afterburner but couldn’t pull it off and f@#ked up and collided with the prop and stab in error.
Beautiful!
You can tell it was a F* up– if the Russkies did it intententionally, they would’ve immediately claimed it was an accident and our fault.
Butbutbut the media has been saying that Russian Pilots are among some of the world’s best! Well, it’s the SAME media that said the Iraqi Army was going to beat us both times we went there, so …
I just wonder how much Vodka the Pilot had before he went on that flight?
Off-topic, but just in… In the underfunded, undersized “woke” British military, report rapes of female personnel to local police because chain of command can’t handle it now:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/female-soldiers-report-rapes-police-161240272.html
P.S. The UK military has unable to afford its own hospitals, closed them and sent their patients to NHS hospital instead for years now.
Well, that’s what happens when you’re a “subject” instead of a citizen. Unfortunately, we’re probably not too far behind.
HEY WAIT, have the Russian Pilots completed their SHARP and Sensitivity Training? Because according to the powers that be in the US, that’s what counts!
Don’t forget “climate change”
AF says “inclusive environment,” equity. etc. will defeat those Chicoms!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/air-force-says-inclusive-equitable-191941303.html
Al Gore should also get an award for something.
Suuuure. A graveside marker. And NOT at a national cemetery.
Kamikaze-ing a drone IS pretty brave. If intentional, regardless of survival, it was brave as hell.
At least, attritionally-thinking, trading one’s life for an enemy’s is mathematically sound… trading one’s life for a robot in the interest of gaining intel is like offering oneself up as tribute.
Completely unrelated, but President Biden will be holding an award ceremony this week to present the Distinguished Flying Cross to all of the Air Force personnel involved in the recent downing of the the Chinese spy ballon.