By Kathleen Magramo, Jack Guy, Ed Upright, Aditi Sangal, Leinz Vales, Adrienne Vogt, Matt Meyer, Elise Hammond and Tori B. Powell, CNN
From CNN's Olga Voitovych in Kyiv
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday about the latest at the front lines around the eastern city of Bakhmut, Zelensky said in a post on his official Twitter account.
"As always, we have concrete results in increasing defense and economic support for Ukraine. Appreciate UK's unwavering position," he added.
Analysis by Stephen Collinson
The stunning aerial video of a Russian jet buzzing and then apparently hitting a US drone over the Black Sea vividly shows how the war in Ukraine could spin out of control.
Clearly, the showdown, which has resulted in angry rhetoric between Washington and Moscow but nothing more, would have been far worse if the US Reaper drone had been a manned aircraft.
The fact a drone was involved has allowed both sides to calibrate their language to avoid an escalation, but the reverberations of the incident are still likely to have prolonged consequences.
The US and its allies are pumping billions of dollars of ammunition and sophisticated arms into Ukraine to be used against Russian forces, prompting worries that a miscalculation or incident could cause direct clashes between Russian and NATO assets.
And one of the most alarming aspects of the drone downing is that it took place in international airspace – not over Russian territory or the battlefield – and thus underscores how US and Russian forces could come into contact even outside the war zone.
Senior Russian defense officials approved the harassment of the drone, CNN’s Natasha Bertrand and Kylie Atwood reported Wednesday, citing two US officials familiar with intelligence on the incident.
So it’s plausible this escalation was a deliberate decision to send some kind of message to the US, or to try to deter US intelligence gathering near Ukraine.
Russia has complained that the US drone infringed its self-declared air rules over the Black Sea. But this is a risible position, given its own huge violation of international law with an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state.
Regardless, the footage of the high-speed airborne clash shows that as long as the Ukraine war goes on — and the West is involved, even indirectly — the possibility for escalation that expands the conflict disastrously will constantly exist.
It will take careful management in both Washington and Moscow to lower the risk.
From CNN's Radina Gigova
It's important to keep the lines of communication between Washington and Moscow open following Tuesday's drone incident, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a news conference Thursday, according to state news agency TASS.
"We believe it’s important to leave the communication lines open, and that’s what we are doing," she said.
Zakharova reiterated that Russia is not seeking a confrontation and stands for pragmatic cooperation in the interests of the people of both countries.
"That said, we are capable of protecting these interests," Zakharova added.
Some background: Moscow and Washington have been in contact through military and diplomatic channels following the incident.
US officials and their Russian counterparts have been in an open dispute over what led to the downing of a US drone over the Black Sea. The US has maintained that Russian fighter jets dumped fuel on the drone before clipping its propeller and forcing it to be flown down; Russians have denied that there was physical contact between a Russian jet and US drone.
From CNN's Allie Malloy
Regardless of the intent of the Russian fighter jet that forced the downing of a US drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, it was "intentional harassment," according to John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council.
"We can’t get between the ears of the Russian pilot and know what the intent was there in terms of striking the drone. It’s just – I don’t know that we’ll ever know. What we do know, and what is clearly evident, is this was intentional harassment. It was intentional dumping of fuel to try to disrupt the flight profile … and it was intentionally aggressive," Kirby said.
Kirby added that the pilot shouldn't have been in the same airspace as the drone in the first place.
"The drone was acting in accordance with international law doing absolutely nothing wrong," he said.
Pressed on whether the US will actively investigate the intent of the pilot, Kirby simply said that “we’re not going on a fact-finding mission.”
Kirby said there were no conversations that he was aware of between US officials and Russian counterparts since the video was released Thursday morning.
“We’re not tracking any outreach either way since the release of the video and frankly ... I wouldn’t be surprised if there was none. The video is pretty darn conclusive about what happened and it absolutely just decimates the Russian lie,” he added.
From CNN's Radina Gigova in London
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met with his Latvian counterpart Krisjanis Karins in Kyiv on Thursday, Shmyhal said in a post on his official Twitter account.
"Ukraine and Latvia will develop new logistics routes. We discussed strengthening trade and economic ties and the restoration of Ukraine," Shmyhal said.
"Appreciate Latvia's support on the road to EU membership and NATO," he added.
A delegation from Estonia is also in Kyiv on Thursday, according to a statement released by the Ukrainian presidency.
Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Ihor Zhovkva met with Estonia's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kyllike Sillaste-Elling, according to the statement. Some of the topics they discussed included military aid, reconstruction efforts and a Ukraine peace formula, according to the statement.
From CNN's Kevin Liptak
Poland's decision to send Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine is a "sovereign decision" that won't spur President Joe Biden to send US F-16 aircraft, according to the White House.
Biden has said shipments of US fighter jets aren't in the cards at the moment, though he hasn't ruled it out entirely.
The pledge from Poland to send four jets, which is a step beyond other allies’ commitments, doesn't alter that decision-making, said John Kirby, a top official at the US National Security Council.
"It doesn’t change our calculus with respect to F-16s," he said.
"These are sovereign decisions for any country to make and we respect those sovereign decisions," he said, adding later, "They get to determine not only what they’re going to give but how they’re going to characterize it."
Kirby declined to endorse the decision, saying he didn't think it was the US' place "to characterize Poland's decision one way or another."
From CNN's Radina Gigova and Olga Voitovych
Russia is increasing its presence in the Black Sea with a "rather atypical number of ships," Ukraine's military said Thursday.
The increased number of vessels, made up of 21 units, may be intended as "a demonstration of dominance at sea" after Tuesday's downing of a US drone by a Russian fighter jet, said a Facebook post from Ukraine's Operational Command South, a formation of the country's army.
The US has said it will take measures to ensure the drone won't fall into the wrong hands.
"It is also possible that the Russians themselves will conduct a search operation," the statement added.
Threat to Ukraine: The military's post said Russia's increased presence in the Black Sea also means a greater threat of missile strikes on Ukraine.
Ukraine's military said the presence of five missile carriers in the Black Sea, including two underwater, "increases the missile threat enormously."
The vessels could be carrying as many as 32 Kalibr-type cruise missiles, the statement said.
"Do not ignore air raid alarms," the Operational Command South warned.
The formation also warned of Russia's growing Black Sea missile carrier presence in an earlier update, which was published Monday.
From CNN's Kevin Liptak
Video of a mid-air incident between a US drone and a Russian fighter jet clearly demonstrates that Russia has been "just flat out lying" about what happened over the Black Sea, said John Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator at the National Security Council.
"It clearly demonstrated our narrative of what happened, and I think if any of you have seen that video you can see clearly that it does," he said Thursday, adding that the decision to release the footage was in part to "lay bare and to make clear to the rest of the world the manner in which the Russians have been just flat out lying" about the episode.
US officials and their Russian counterparts have been in an open dispute over what transpired that led to the downing of a US drone over the Black Sea. The US has maintained that Russian fighter jets dumped fuel on the drone before clipping its propeller and forcing it to be flown down; Russians have denied that there was physical contact between a Russian jet and US drone.
The video doesn't show the actual moment of collision, but it does show a damaged propeller blade after the pass by the Russian jet. Kirby said the video provided "clear and convincing evidence of the account that we laid out."
Still, Kirby said the video could not provide evidence of the Russian pilot's intentions. "At best, it's reckless flying. At worst, it's reckless and incompetent. We don't know whether it is also intentional, the video doesn't just show us that," he added.
From CNN’s Uliana Pavlova
A court in Yekaterinburg, Russia, has sentenced Kremlin critic and former mayor of the city Yevgeny Roizman to 14 days in prison on charges of displaying extremist symbols for reposting a video, titled "Why is Putin imprisoning Navalny" on social media, according to Russian state news agency TASS.
The video was reposted on the VKontakte social network in a social media group of Roizman supporters, but it is not his personal page, as he says in a video published by TASS that he does not have a VK account.
A separate criminal case was opened against Roizman in August for discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation. He was also banned from going online.
Roizman, a close ally of Alexey Navalny, has also been declared a "foreign agent" in Russia.
