Maybe, but in the past we've used fighters to shoot down Reapers after losing positive control over them (e.g., in Afghanistan), so it's not clear that they are very self destructible. Flying it straight down into the water would probably cause a large amount of disintegration.
MQ9s have also been lost many times before, including over Yemen and Libya, so it's not clear how sensitive the wreck still is.
It seems obvious that it was brought down intentionally, although they didn't fire weapons against it. They dumped fuel on it instead to try to wriggle away from an open conflict.
collided implies it was accidental, so i guess it was accidental. according to the bbc.
but this part made me crack up:
> Several times before the collision the Su-27 fighter jets dumped fuel on the drone in a "reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner".
The Unites States Military -- Environmental Defenders!
not sure why russians were so intimidated by a little toy drone....w-w-wait whuhhht?
Some major Western country doesn't want to admit that it is in a real hot war against Russia and China with Ukrainian soldiers doing the grunt work in the European theatre.
So long as it is the Ukrainians who are dying, and it is drones that are getting destroyed, they will continue to pretend that they are not in a real war which the blood and guts of their men are getting spilled.
> There's only one government responsible for the war and needless deaths and that is Russia.
Well, we as Westerners have some responsibility too. We decided we preferred more war (and more deaths) rather than have some regions of Ukraine called Russia now.
Moreover, a fair number of Make America Great Again folks advocate for cutting support to Ukraine. Seemingly, sucking up to dictators and tyrans is the new way to greatness?!
I don't suppose you aware that more Americans die every year of inadequate healthcare than the Ukrainian soldiers that have died so far.
Fun fact. When the war stops the Ukrainian soldiers will stop dying, but the needless deaths from poverty and inadequate healthcare in America will continue.
How people can believe that a political regime with such indifference to its own citizens welfare could be concerned about the "freedom" for the citizens of another country on the other side of the world totally beats me.
I guess "freedom" for the Ukrainians means the freedom to have all their country's most valuable assets sold to Western business conglomerates to pay for the reconstruction of the country after the war is over.
I'm advocating nothing. I'm simply stating the unspoken facts about this war, and nowhere have I said the Russians are good guys here.
What I'm saying is that the ruling regime of the US is not supporting Ukraine in this war out of concern for the welfare of Ukrainian people, for the simple reason that it does not care about the condition of its poorer citizens.
The US is happy for the economic, military, moral and social condition of Russia to degrade so long as Russia's resources are diverted to an unproductive war even if Ukrainians suffer as a consequence.
The war gives the US the opportunity to degrade Russia, properly speaking, to get Russia to continue on it path of self-degradation through the prosecution of this war, Ukrainians be damned.
You are correct. Anybody who says it is solely Russia's fault, and the US/NATO side are the good guys, don't remember the war with Iraq (weapons of mass destruction), Afghanistan, Vietnam, and all the other wars.
The problem is that the US is laying the groundwork to blame Covid on entirely on China, thereby letting Fauci, Gates, Pfizer et al off the hook, to justify confrontation/war with China.
I'm no expert, but I feel like there are cheaper and easier ways to improve the public perception of Fauci and Gates (I suspect it's not even that bad to start with) than starting a proxy war with Russia and/or a direct war with China.
You imply it's the USA who started this war? Please get your facts straight, will you? Russia invaded Ukraine. First time in 2014, then again in 2022. Nobody invaded Rusdia since 1941, or China for that matter.
My major question is, did the drone self-destruct to prevent retrieval and reverse engineering?