Russian Fighter Jet Nearly Shot Down British Spy Plane, Leaked Document Reveals

The incident was much more serious than London had previously admitted, according to the Washington Post, which obtained the leaked document.

UK Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace had previously briefed Parliament that Moscow had blamed the close call on a technical malfunction, which London had accepted.

The document describes it as a "near-shoot down of UK RJ", which is a reference to the ‘River Joint’ moniker common for the RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft used to collect radio transmissions and electronic messages.

The UK had said in October that the plane had been intercepted by two Russian Su-27 fighters over the Black Sea, with one of them "releasing a missile" near the plane.

The incident could have triggered Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, leading to direct involvement of NATO forces in the conflict in Ukraine, or even a direct conflict between Moscow and the military bloc, according to the Washington Post.

Neither the US, the UK, nor Russia have commented on the contents of the document.

The US reportedly took a more cautious approach towards reconnaissance missions in the Black Sea region after the incident.

The Pentagon instructed the Air Force to stay away from the Crimean Peninsula and drew several lines over sections of the Black Sea to mark safe areas for American surveillance aircraft, according to the document.

One of the lines demarcates an area around 12 nautical miles off the coast of Crimea, the edge of Russia's territorial waters under international law. Another line drawn around 50 nautical miles from the shore is called ‘SECDEF Directed Standoff’, which may indicate that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the Air Force to keep their aircraft away from the peninsula.

The US has relied on drones, including the RQ-4 Global Hawk, the RQ-170 Sentinel, and the MQ-9 Reaper, for surveillance flights over the Black Sea, unlike France and the UK, which deploy manned surveillance flights, the document said. Several unmanned flights take place every month.

In March, the Pentagon accused Russian pilots of reckless flying and claimed that one had clipped the propeller of a US Reaper UAV, causing it to go down. Russia denied hitting the drone or using weapons against it, and claimed the aircraft was flying with its transponder switched off in a no-go zone declared by the Russian military. The Pentagon has rerouted its surveillance drone flights over the Black Sea in the wake of the incident.

The leaks have prompted the Pentagon and the Department of Justice to launch separate probes into the matter. Reuters has reported that the Pentagon suspects a US citizen may have been behind the leak, citing potential motivations ranging from a disgruntled employee to an insider threat actively seeking to undermine US national security interests. The investigation is also looking into how widely intelligence is shared internally to limit the sample of possible culprits.

It should be noted that the authenticity of the leaked materials cannot be independently authenticated, and US investigators have not ruled out the possibility that some of the documents could have been doctored to mislead the inquiry or to disseminate false information. However, the leaks have raised concerns about US intelligence-gathering activities and the potential impact on diplomatic relations with other countries involved in the Ukraine conflict.