The defense officials of the United States and Russia have spoken a day after the incident between a us military drone shot down in the Black Sea and Russian fighters. The US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, has reminded his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, that their air forces must act professionally and also safely.

“The United States will continue to fly and operate wherever international law allows. It is important that the great powers be models of transparency and communication,” Austin added.

For his part, Sergei Lavrov, has admitted that any incident with the United States entails “very great risks.” “Any incident that causes a confrontation between two great powers, two nuclear powers, the largest in the world, always carries great risks. They can’t not understand“, he said in statements to the television channel ‘Rossía-1’.

Both powers have made it clear that they do not want to raise the tone at the moment. The Russian ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, insists on avoiding escalation, saying that they do not want “any confrontation between the United States and the Russian Federation.”

The Pentagon does not want the drone to be found by Russia

The United States has described what happened from the outset as “worrying.” According to his version, his drone was carrying out a routine operation when it was intercepted and struck by a Russian fighter, which led US forces to shoot it down in international waters due to the damage caused.

From the Ministry of Defense they claimed that their fighters did not shoot down the MQ-9 and defended that the drone entered an airspace of prohibited access until the Russian army concludes its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The incident took place near the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimeawhere the Kremlin frowns on the presence of NATO, be it warships or intelligence apparatus.

The Pentagon is now scrambling to search for the downed drone because they don’t want it to fall into the hands of the Russians.