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The US and Russia have different accounts of what caused an American drone to crash into the Black Sea on Tuesday.

It is the first time the two powers have come into direct contact since the Ukraine war started last year.

‘Something clearly went wrong’; follow Ukraine latest

American officials say two Russian fighter jets deliberately intercepted the ‘unmanned aerial vehicle’, while Moscow claims the US was flying too close to its territory.

Here Sky News looks at what we know so far.

What happened?

The US regularly uses spy drones to gather intelligence around Ukraine, including the MQ-9 Reaper.

Reapers can be flown remotely up to 50,000ft. They are used primarily for surveillance but can be equipped with missiles for attack missions.

MQ-9 Reaper drone. AP file pic
Image:
MQ-9 Reaper drone. AP file pic

Defence analyst Professor Michael Clarke tells Sky News: “The Americans had a surveillance drone going round in circles over the Black Sea.

“It was almost certainly just surveying, picking up intelligence from on the ground. The Russians always try to put them off and buzz them with their aircraft.”

On this occasion, two Russian Su-27 fighter jets tried to intercept the drone by flying in front and dumping fuel on top of it in an effort to blind or damage it, US officials say.

This went on for 30 or 40 minutes on Tuesday morning before one of the Su-27s clipped the rear propeller of the Reaper somewhere between Crimea and Odesa.

Due to the damage, the Americans were forced to crash it into the water.

Map

What has the US said?

The US Department of Defense has said the fighter jet’s contact with the drone forced it to crash land.

“Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on, and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner,” US Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa commander James B. Hecker said.

The US says it was conducting routine operations in international airspace and that the Russian interception was “unsafe and unprofessional” and “demonstrates a lack of competence”.

Its European command also insists that while Reapers can carry weapons for attack missions, the one involved on Tuesday was only for intelligence.

What does Russia say?

The Kremlin says the American drone was flying too close to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014 and claims as its own territory.

Russia has also falsely declared the area a no-fly zone – describing the incident as a “provocation”.

Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said: “The unacceptable actions of the United States military in the close proximity to our borders are cause for concern.

“If, for example, a Russian strike drone appeared near New York or San Francisco, how would the US Air Force and Navy react?”

Russian Air Force Su-27 Russian Knights jet fighters. File pic.
Image:
Russian Air Force Su-27 jet fighters. File pic

Although the Su-27 carries a 30mm gun, Moscow says it “did not use airborne weapons” on this occasion.

It also claims its jet “did not come into contact” with the Reaper and the crash was a result of “sharp manoeuvring”.

Professor Clarke added: “In my mind, something clearly went wrong.

“Any pilot of a jet who could deliberately fly into a propeller of a drone that goes so slowly is a complete idiot.

“It’s much more likely that it was an accident and the pilot hit the propeller.”

What happens now?

While the Soviet-era jet managed to return back to base safely, the US drone has not been recovered.

According to Sky News security and defence editor Deborah Haynes: “The Americans will have done all they can to make sure that anything secret is not accessible, deleted, destroyed.”

Russian ambassador Mr Antonov was summoned to the US on Tuesday when he said Russia does not want any direct confrontation with Washington.

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Professor Clarke says the “back and forth” between the two sides is likely to continue in the coming days.

“The US is gathering information all the time and you wouldn’t expect the Russians to like what’s going on and not try and disrupt it.

“That game has been going on for a couple of months now.

“But now instead of it just between a competition between US intelligence and Russian aircraft, it’s become an international incident.”

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Four more arrests made over Louvre heist as £76m haul remains missing

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Four more arrests made over Louvre heist as £76m haul remains missing

Four more arrests have been made by French police investigating the Louvre museum heist.

Two men and two women from the Paris region were detained on Tuesday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.

Ms Beccuau’s statement did not say what role the quartet are suspected of having played in the robbery. The two men are aged 38 and 39, and the two women are aged 31 and 40.

They are being interrogated by police, who can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.

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Louvre: How ‘heist of the century’ unfolded

The latest arrests come after investigating magistrates filed preliminary charges against three men and one woman who were arrested last month.

Some of the French Crown Jewels, worth an estimated £76m, were stolen in the audacious October raid.

The haul – which included a diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense, and Empress Eugenie’s pearl and diamond tiara – has not been recovered.

The heist was pulled off in mere minutes last month – and took place while the Louvre was open to visitors, raising doubts over the credibility of the world’s most-visited museum as a guardian for its priceless works.

On Sunday 19 October, two men used a stolen furniture lift to access the second floor Galerie d’Apollon.

They then cracked open display cases with angle grinders before escaping with their loot and fleeing on the back of two scooters driven by accomplices.

Read more:
Louvre director offers to resign
Gallery closed as structure in ‘dire state’

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Moment thieves escape Louvre in jewel heist

The Paris prosecutor previously said the robbery appeared to be the work of small-time criminals rather than professional gangsters.

Speaking shortly after the heist, art detective Arthur Brand told Sky News that detectives faced a “race against time” to recover the stolen treasure.

“These crown jewels are so famous, you just cannot sell them,” Mr Brand said. “The only thing they can do is melt the silver and gold down, dismantle the diamonds, try to cut them. That’s the way they will probably disappear forever.

“They [the police] have a week. If they catch the thieves, the stuff might still be there. If it takes longer, the loot is probably gone and dismantled. It’s a race against time.”

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Zelenskyy is racing to beat Donald Trump’s peace plan deadline – but what will Russia do?

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Zelenskyy is racing to beat Donald Trump's peace plan deadline – but what will Russia do?

Washington woke up this morning to a flurry of developments on Ukraine.

It was the middle of the night in DC when a tweet dropped from Ukraine’s national security advisor, Rustem Umerov.

He said that the US and Ukraine had reached a “common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”

He added that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would travel to America “at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump”.

Ukraine latest: ‘Delicate’ deal details must be sorted, White House says

By sunrise in Washington, a US official was using similar but not identical language to frame progress.

The official, speaking anonymously to US media, said that Ukraine had “agreed” to Trump’s peace proposal “with some minor details to be worked out”.

More on Donald Trump

In parallel, it’s emerged that talks have been taking place in Abu Dhabi. The Americans claim to have met both Russian and Ukrainian officials there, though the Russians have not confirmed attendance.

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Peace deal ‘agreement’: What we know

“I have nothing to say. We are following the media reports,” Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, told Russian state media.

Trump is due to travel to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago tonight, where he will remain until Sunday.

He set a deadline of Thursday – Thanksgiving – for some sort of agreement on his plan.

We know the plan has been changed from its original form, but it’s clear that Zelenskyy wants to be seen to agree to something quickly – that would go down well with President Trump.

Read more:
US hails ‘tremendous progress’ on Ukraine peace plan

In full: Europe’s 28-point counter proposal

My sense is that Zelenskyy will try to get to Mar-a-Lago as soon as he can. Before Thursday would be a push but would meet Trump’s deadline.

It will then be left for the Russians to state their position on the revised document.

All indications are that they will reject it. But maybe the secret Abu Dhabi talks will yield something.

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Controversial US and Israeli-backed aid operation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to close

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Controversial US and Israeli-backed aid operation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to close

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid distribution group, has said it will permanently cease operations.

Set up as an alternative to United Nations aid programmes in May, GHF’s executive director John Acree said on Monday that it “succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans”.

The foundation had already closed down aid distribution sites after US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan was agreed by Hamas and Israel in October.

The GHF which began operations in Gaza after an Israeli blockade of food deliveries, lasting nearly three months, was criticised by Palestinians, aid workers and health officials who said it forced people to risk their lives to reach the sites.

File pic: Reuters
Image:
File pic: Reuters

According to witnesses and videos posted to social media, Israeli soldiers repeatedly opened fire at the sites, killing hundreds. The IDF denied this, saying it only fired warning shots as a crowd-control measure or if its troops were in danger.

In July, analysis from Sky News’ Data and Forensics team found that aid distributions by GHF were associated with a significant increase in deaths.

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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open

MSF – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said in a report in August that the GHF sites “morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,” and described scenes there as “orchestrated killing”.

More on Gaza

‘We are proud,’ says GHF director

Mr Acree said in a statement through the GHF’s website that “from the outset, GHF’s goal was to meet an urgent need” and to hand over a successful aid operation to “the broader international community”.

The GHF would hand over its work to the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire.

“We are winding down our operations as we have succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans,” Mr Acree said.

File pic: Reuters
Image:
File pic: Reuters

The GHF director added: “At a critical juncture, we are proud to have been the only aid operation that reliably and safely provided free meals directly to Palestinian people in Gaza, at scale and without diversion.

“From our very first day of operations, our mission was singular: feed civilians in desperate need. We built a new model that worked, saved lives, and restored dignity to civilians in Gaza.”

According to the GHF website, the group distributed more than three million food boxes, totalling 187 million meals, and supplied 1.1 million packs of Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSF) for malnourished children.

Read more:
Sky’s Adam Parsons sees Gaza destruction
Israel launches strikes on Gaza
Israel strikes Beirut for first time in months

Hamas welcomes GHF closure

In a statement, Hamas welcomed the closure of GHF and accused it of being a project that “engineered starvation” in partnership with Israel.

A Hamas spokesperson said: “Since its entry into the Gaza Strip, this foundation was part of the occupation’s security system, which adopted distribution mechanisms entirely disconnected from humanitarian principles, and created dangerous and degrading conditions for the dignity of the starving Palestinian people during their attempts to obtain a piece of bread, resulting in the killing and injury of thousands, through sniper operations and deliberate killing.”

They also called on international legal bodies to hold “this foundation and its officers accountable for their crimes against our people”.

US state department deputy spokesperson Tommy Piggot also said on X that the aid group “shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners”.

“GHF’s model, in which Hamas could no longer loot and profit from stealing aid, played a huge role in getting Hamas to the table and achieving a ceasefire,” he added.

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