MOSCOW. March 22 (Interfax) - Pilots of Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jets have revealed that they conducted maneuvers over the Black Sea on March 14 in a bid to make a U.S. drone change its course, said that they had not made contact to the drone or used any weapons to stop it.
On Wednesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu bestowed state decorations on the pilots of the Su-27 fighter jets who prevented a violation of the boundaries of a temporarily closed area over the Black sea by the U.S. drone, the Russian Defense Ministry said in statement on Wednesday.
"We were on active duty on air defense on March 14, when the command 'Air' came. We took off together with the second crew, there were two crews. We established that it was a Reaper MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle. We communicated all the date to the command post. And then, we performed maneuvers, by which we attempted to make it stop accomplishing its mission. We used no weapons, made no contact to this drone," pilot Sergei Popov said on a video footage published by the Russian Defense Ministry.
"We were on air defense duty. Received a command to take off. We accomplished an interception mission by two crews to intercept an unmanned aerial vehicle, which was traveling with the purpose of violating the state border. After takeoff, we approached this aerial vehicle, identified it and performed maneuvers to force it to abandon its mission," pilot Sergei Vavilov said on a video.
The pilots have been awarded Orders of Courage, the ministry said.