News - Middle East: Hawkish Republican Senator Marco Rubio says the United States should begin flying more military drones with fighter jet escorts over the Black Sea region, following the crash of an American drone there.     

Rubio, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Russia downed a US Reaper drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday which is a “test” for the Biden administration.  
“It’s a test to see if we’ll respond to it,” he added.

The Pentagon claimed a Russian Su-27 fighter jet collided with a US military drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, causing it to crash.

Washington called the incident "reckless" and "unprofessional" while Moscow rejected US accusations and instead blamed the United States for conducting "hostile" flights in the region.

Russia denied that its forces had made any effort to down the drone, and instead suggested that the US aircraft had possibly crashed due to "sharp maneuvering."

According to Moscow, the incident happened as the UAV was flying "over the waters of the Black Sea in the area of the Crimean peninsula...towards the Russian state border."

Crimea declared independence from Ukraine on March 17, 2014 and formally became a part of Russia later on..
The US military released footage of what it described as an “unsafe” and “unprofessional” intercept by the Russian warplane.

The short video footage purportedly shows a Russian Su-27 approaching the back of the US MQ-9 drone on Tuesday and dumping fuel as it passes.

The European Command said the warplane made a second pass at the unpiloted drone, again dumping fuel, before colliding with the drone.

“I think our response should be to fly more of these in that area and to potentially have them escorted by US fighter jets who are manned and have the capability to respond,” Rubio said. 

Rubio said members of the Gang of Eight, the top four party leaders in Congress and the chairmen and vice chairmen of the Senate and Houses Intelligence committees, have not received an additional briefing on the incident, but still claimed that it’s clear that Russian fighters acted intentionally. 

“This was a deliberate effort, this wasn’t some accident. It wasn’t some harassment effort that went awry. This was a design. They basically decided we’re going to begin to shoot down US assets, whatever’s flying in what they call restricted airspace,” he said. 

Russia on Wednesday warned the United States that it will retaliate "proportionately" to all future US provocations.