Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in response to the Pentagon declaration that the U.S. military will fly everywhere international law allows, said that such logic means that the airspace of the U.S. has the same status as that over the Black Sea. “In doing so, they completely ignore the fact that after the start of the special military operation our military declared the relevant areas of the Black Sea adjacent to the shore in certain places to have a restricted status for the use of any aircraft,” he said. “The defiant disregard for this objective fact suggests that the United States is constantly trying to create some kind of provocation to fuel confrontational thinking. This is not good. They constantly say that they are a responsible power interested in strategic stability. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told me this at the meeting in India. But their words are at odds with their deeds.”
In Washington, National security Council spokesman John Kirby simply dismissed the Russian airspace claim. “They [Russia] can announce whatever they want. They can say whatever they want,” he said. “We’re going to continue to fly and operate in accordance with international law.” Kirby also claimed that U.S. aircraft, including the MQ-9 Reaper drone that fell into the Black Sea earlier this week, are “flying in international airspace legally.”
