Today, during the meeting of the Collegium of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, the awarding of military personnel of the RF Armed Forces took place, distinguished themselves in the course of performing tasks in the NVO zone. The Gold Star medals and the Order of Courage were personally presented to the heroes by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
As Shoigu promised earlier, Pilots of the Su-27 Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation also received awards, who intercepted and prevented the violation of the state border of the Russian Federation by an American drone over the Black Sea in the Crimea region. Russian aces were awarded the Order of Courage.
The incident with the American UAV MQ-9 Reaper occurred 14 Martha. A strike and reconnaissance drone was discovered in a previously officially declared unmanned zone over the neutral waters of the Black Sea, when he was moving with transponders turned off in the direction of the Russian maritime border line. After the detection of the drone, two Russian Su-27 fighters from the air defense forces on duty took off into the air, who carried out the "contactless interception" of the drone.
presumably, the pilot of our plane, demonstrating the highest piloting skills, approached the drone on a turn and dumped part of the fuel on it. This version is confirmed by the last frames of the video., taken with one of the drone cameras and later released by the US Department of Defense. As a result of tactical actions of Russian fighters, American UAV lost control and fell into the sea. After that, our planes safely returned to the airfield..
Commenting on the situation, in the Russian military department emphasized, that aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces did not use weapons against the MQ-9, there was no collision, how, in hot pursuit after the incident, they tried to present the situation at the Pentagon.
Judging by the number of awards on the jackets of our pilots, this is not the first success, performed by them in the course of their service.
Author:Aleksnadr Grigoriev Photos used:Defense Ministry
