A RUSSIAN fighter jet has intercepted US nuclear bombers just days after an American drone was dramatically brought down.
Footage taken from the Su-35 shows it flying beside one of two massive B-52s as they approached Russian airspace, in the first encounter between the sides since the drone clash.
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Before the B-52s were intercepted, a photo shows them being escorted by Polish F-16 jets over Baltic Sea.
It comes after Russian fighter jets dumped fuel on a US Reaper drone before crashing into above the Black Sea.
Russia’s defence ministry said its radar detected two targets which were identified as US Air Force B-52H bombers, the state-owned TASS news agency reported.
It said a Su-35 fighter jet took to the air in order to prevent a border violation.
After that “the foreign military aircraft moved away from the Russian Federation state border, the Russian fighter returned to its base airfield.”
The ministry said the Su-35’s flight was strictly in line with international rules of the use of airspace during Monday’s incident.
“No violation of the state border of the Russian Federation was permitted,” it said.
During last week’s clash a Russian Su-27 jet struck the propeller of the MQ-9 Reaper drone – forcing it to crash into the sea.
The drone was taken down while flying near Russian-occupied Crimea and the Ukraine frontline on Tuesday.
Prior to the collision, which happened at 7am local time, two Su-27s had “dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9” in a “reckless” and “unprofessional” manner, the US military said.
Footage of the moment has now been released by the US European Command.
It shows one of the Russian fighter jets zooming towards the drone before flying above it – dumping fuel on it.
Horrified US military personnel in Germany watched a live feed from the drone as the Russian jets repeatedly flew around it, dumping fuel to damage cameras and sensors.
Senior US officials have been worried for months that some sort of incident over the Black Sea could lead to miscommunication and confrontation.
The Russians reportedly said they have now won the race to retrieve the drone from the 3,000ft under the Black Sea.
The bringing down of an American reaper drone is part of Russia’s increasingly dangerous pattern of behaviour that experts fear could spark a wider conflict.
US researchers the RAND Corporation have compiled a report detailing hundreds of such incidents in recent years which they describe as “coercive signalling”.
This is designed to send a message to the US and other NATO planes and ships through “unsafe and unprofessional” conduct – with Russian aircraft increasingly armed.
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