While the US is working through recovery operations for a downed MQ-9 Reaper drone intercepted by Russian aircraft on Tuesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Wednesday that it is “no longer” of intelligence value.
"(I)t probably broke up, probably not a lot to recover, frankly," Milley said. "As far as the loss of anything of sensitive intelligence etc., as normal we would take — and we did take — mitigating measures. So we are quite confident that whatever was of value is no longer of value."
Milley said the US knows where the drone landed in the Black Sea, and that it is likely four to five thousand feet under the surface, which would make recovery operations "very difficult" for anyone. He said the US does not have any naval surface vessels in the Black Sea at the moment, but that "we'll work up options."
"(W)e don't have any ships there, but we do have a lot of allies and friends in the area," he added. "We’ll work through recovery operations, that's US property, and we'll leave it at that at this point."