Russia Threatened to Shoot Down French Aircraft Over Black Sea, Defense Minister Says

Russia threatened to shoot down French aircraft patrolling in international airspace above the Black Sea, France’s defense minister said on Thursday, February 21.

Sébastien Lecornu, the minister, didn’t specify what kind of aircraft was involved in the incident, but he did say that the Kremlin is returning to “particularly aggressive” behavior reminiscent of the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, Knewz.com has learned.

Russia threatened to shoot down a French AWACS aircraft, France’s defense minister said. By: MEGA

“A month ago, to give you a very concrete example, a Russian air traffic control system threatened to shoot down French aircraft in the Black Sea when we were in a free international zone where we patrol,” he said on RTL radio, according to ABC News.

“The behavior of Russia in 2024 bears no relation to what we saw in 2022 and, obviously, before the aggression in Ukraine,” the minister said. “It is explained by the fact that Russia is in difficulty on the battlefield in Ukraine.”

French military spokesman Col. Pierre Gaudillière told ABC News that Lecornu was talking about a situation that took place in mid-November. In the incident, one of France’s four giant Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) was confronted.

Russia President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons multiple times. By: MEGA

Gaudillière called the incident unprecedented for that region.

“It was a French AWACS,” Gaudillière said. “Through a radio exchange, it was threatened by the Russians.”

“It was a particularly aggressive radio exchange,” he added. “It’s a first.”

French flights frequently patrol on the eastern flank of NATO, efforts that began after Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.

AWACS aircraft can detect potential threats in the skies. By: MEGA

The AWACS make long-range flights in which they can do surveillance across the Crimean Peninsula that was taken over by Russia in 2014. The aircraft can locate missile launches, airborne bombing and other military connected to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Russia’s air threats against NATO nations are nothing new.

As Knewz.com reported on Monday, February 19, Moscow reported that it “intercepted” a British-made drone and learned of its “secrets.”

The Kremlin’s FSB security service reported that the Banshee kamikaze jet drone had overridden its flight plan during a mission and took the aircraft.

Russian special forces attend a parade for Victory Day in 2019. By: MEGA

“After a controlled landing of the drone, explosives experts neutralized the warhead weighing 7 kilograms,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Russia’s official newspaper reported, according to The Daily Mail. “Experts studied the electronic content of the UAV and determined that it was aimed at a large civil infrastructure facility in Mariupol.”

The outlet didn’t specify how the drone was captured nor what its mission was.

“The Russian FSB Directorate for the DPR [Donetsk People’s republic], with units of the military commandant’s office and the National Guard, in the Novoazovsky district intercepted a British Banshee Jet-80 kamikaze jet drone,” said Denis Pushilin, the Russia President Vladimir Putin-appointed head of the occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine.

AWACS is an acronym for Airborne Warning and Control System. By: MEGA

He also claimed, “Western terrorists, along with their Ukrainian accomplices” of trying to “organize a monstrous terrorist attack and blame Russia for everything.”

Pushilin accused the West of attempting to pull off a mass-casualty event.

“Against the backdrop of a major defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces in Avdiivka, the Kyiv regime is making any attempt to destabilize the situation in the republic [occupied region],” he said. “Thanks to the coordinated work of our special services, we were able to prevent a large-scale terrorist attack with human casualties.”