WATCH Unidentified Jet Approach to Within Few Hundred Feet of US Reaper Drone

10:00 GMT, 9 May 2019

Russian Air defence forces have tracked and intercepted literally thousands of NATO fighter planes, bombers, spy planes and drones flying along Russia's borders in recent years, with fighters scrambled repeatedly to intercept some of these errant aircraft to force them to change course.

Sputnik

Maxmpower, an Instagram channel dedicated to Russian military aviation, has posted what appears to be footage of a Russian combat jet approaching to within just several hundred yards of a US MQ-9 Reaper drone.

The video is accompanied by the phrase "Peek-a-boo my little one," and the hashtags #Su27, #Su30 and #Su35 It's not clear where and when the footage was shot.

Russia's defence ministry has not commented on the footage.

US Spy Planes Spotted Again Near Russian Borders – Report

2 May 2019, 05:21 GMT

The MQ-9 Reaper drone is a combined high-altitude surveillance and hunter-killer drone developed by aerospace and defence giant General Dynamics. Along with the US Air Force and Navy, the Reaper is known to have been used by the CIA, with the aircraft flown around the world, including US operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and Yemen.

The Russian military has reported a considerable uptick in US and NATO airborne activity along Russia's western borders in the Black and Baltic seas, as well as around Russian military facilities in Syria, in recent years. In 2018 alone, air defence troops tracked around 3,000 foreign combat aircraft, around a third of them consisting of spy planes and reconnaissance drones. Over the same period, Russian warplanes have been scrambled repeatedly to intercept these aircraft and force them to change course.