The U.S. military said a Russian fighter plane clipped the propeller of one its spy drones and made it crash into the Black Sea on Tuesday in the first such direct encounter between the two world powers since Russia invaded Ukraine over a year ago.
The Russian Defence Ministry offered a different account, and Moscow's ambassador to Washington said his country "views this incident as a provocation" involving a U.S. MQ-9 drone and Russian Su-27 fighter jet.
The United States, which has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, has not become directly engaged in the war but it does conduct regular surveillance flights in the region.