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(NEW YORK) — Three MQ-9 Reaper drones that the U.S. military said had been “harassed” by Russian fighter jets over Syria on Friday were the same drones that later carried out an airstrike that killed a top Islamic State group leader, U.S. Central Command announced Sunday.

Usamah al-Muhajir was killed on Friday, CENTCOM said.

A defense official told ABC News that he was killed while riding a motorcycle in northwestern Syria in an area where the U.S. has carried out other strikes against terrorist leaders who operate in an area under Syrian government control and where the Russian military also conducts flight operations in support of the Syrian regime.

News of the strike capped three straight days of tense encounters as the U.S. criticized Russian pilots for “unsafe and unprofessional” behavior with its drones flying over Syria.

“The strike on Friday was conducted by the same MQ-9s that had, earlier in the day, been harassed by Russian aircraft in an encounter that had lasted almost two hours,” CENTCOM said in Sunday’s statement.

The U.S. military had also called out the behavior of Russian fighter pilots it said “harassed” the Reaper drones that were flying anti-terrorism missions over Syria in two separate incidents on Wednesday and Thursday.

To highlight that behavior, the Pentagon declassified two videos that showed Russian fighter jets dropping parachute flares in front of the drones and one of the jets engaging its afterburners, all actions that led the drones to have to take evasive maneuvers.

There was a third straight day of interactions between Russian fighters and U.S. drones on Friday when U.S. Air Forces Central said “Russian aircraft flew 18 unprofessional close passes that caused the MQ-9s to react to avoid unsafe situations.”

“We have made it clear that we remain committed to the defeat of ISIS throughout the region,” Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, commander of CENTCOM, said in a statement Sunday. “ISIS is a threat, not only to the region but well beyond.”

CENTCOM said that while there “are no indications that any civilians were killed in this strike,” officials were “assessing reports of a civilian injury.”

U.S. aircraft normally operate in eastern Syria where 900 U.S. troops are involved in counter-IS operations, while Russian troops and aircraft operate in western Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

That the airstrike occurred near Aleppo in northwestern Syria may help explain why the U.S. drones were coming into frequent contact with Russian fighter jets that fly out of the nearby air base at Khmeimim.

Last week, a Pentagon spokesman discounted Russian Defense Ministry claims that American drones had been flying in areas where Russian aircraft operate, suggesting the U.S. was to blame for the altercations.

However, on previous occasions, U.S. aircraft have operated in northwestern Syria to undertake airstrikes targeting senior IS leaders.

For years, both militaries have regularly used a deconfliction safety line to provide advance notifications of where their aircraft would be operating over Syria to prevent any unsafe interactions.

U.S. officials have said that, in recent months, Russia is no longer using that line regularly.

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(VATICAN CITY) — Pope Francis announced Sunday he’s elevating 21 clergymen from around the world to become cardinals in a ceremony later this year.

The pope made the announcement during his noontime Sunday prayer from St. Peter’s Square, saying the ceremony will be held on Sept. 30.

In his decade-long tenure as pope, this will be his ninth consistory.

The new cardinals come from countries including the United States, Italy, Argentina, Switzerland, South Africa, Spain, Colombia, South Sudan, Hong Kong, Poland, Malaysia, Tanzania and Portugal.

“Let us pray for the new Cardinals, so that, confirming their adhesion to Christ, the merciful and faithful High Priest, they might help me in my ministry as Bishop of Rome for the good of the entire Holy People faithful to God,” Francis said during Sunday’s service, according to Vatican News.

Following tensions between Hong Kong and the Catholic Church, the pope picked Bishop Stephen Chow of Hong Kong as one of the men to become cardinal.

The Vatican also named Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, a top official in Jerusalem, which has a small catholic community, to become a cardinal.

The pope named Archbishop Christophe Pierre, from the U.S., as a cardinal-elect. It’s rare to see a papal representative from the U.S. become a cardinal.

Last year, Pope Francis elevated Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego, California, to cardinal during his August consistory. McElroy was one of 20 Vatican-appointed cardinals who was elevated in 2022.

McElroy, considered a progressive in the church, has criticized bishops in the U.S. for denying holy communion to politicians who support abortion rights. He also signed a statement, alongside other bishops, supporting LGBTQIA youth.

After the ceremony, there will be 137 cardinal electors — all under 80 years old — who will be able to enter a conclave to choose the next pope.

The full list of new cardinal electors:

•     Archbishop Robert Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops;
•     Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches;
•     Archbishop Víctor Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith;
•     Archbishop Emil Tscherrig, retired apostolic nuncio
•     Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the U.S.;
•     Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem;
•     Archbishop Stephen Brislin, Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa
•     Archbishop Ángel Sixto, Archbishop of Córdoba, Argentina;
•     Archbishop Luis José Rueda Aparicio of Bogotá, Colombia;
•     Archbishop Grzegorz Ryś, Archbishop of Łódź, Poland;
•     Archbishop Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla, Archbishop of Juba, South Sudan;
•     Archbishop José Cobo Cano, Archbishop of Madrid;
•     Archbishop Protase Rugambwa, coadjutor Archbishop of Tabora, Tanzania;
•     Bishop Sebastian Francis of Penang, Malaysia;
•     Bishop Stephen Chow, Bishop of Hong Kong;
•     Bishop François-Xavier Bustillo, bishop of Ajaccio, France;
•     Bishop Américo Manuel Alves Aguiar, auxiliary bishop of Lisbon, Portugal;
•     Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, Superior General of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

ABC News’ Melissa Adan and Matthew Vann contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Nearly two dozen armed men stormed a hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières in the Tabarre section of Port-au-Prince Thursday night, forcibly removing a gunshot victim as he was being operated on and threatening to kill the staff inside the facility, the organization said.

MSF said it has since suspended all trauma and burn care activities at its largest hospital in the country, in what will be a massive blow to Haiti’s already reeling healthcare system.

ABC News visited the hospital just a few weeks ago, speaking to nurses and patients about the unprecedented levels of gang violence plaguing Haiti’s capital city.

MSF said an unidentified gunshot victim arrived at the hospital on July 6 and was immediately brought in for surgery due to the severity of his injuries. Shortly thereafter, two other men feigning injuries approached the thick metal gate at the compound’s entrance.

When security guards opened the door to let them in, 20 gunmen burst into the facility, according to MSF. They demanded the staff show them where the gunshot victim was. They found him being treated in an operating room, forcing doctors and nurses to stand aside as they carried him out of the hospital.

No staff members were injured during the incident, MSF said. It’s not clear who the victim was or why the gunmen came after him.

“There is such contempt for human life among the conflicting parties, and such violence in Port-au-Prince, that even the vulnerable, sick and wounded are not spared,” said Mahaman Bachard Iro, head of MSF’s programs in Haiti. “How are we, the health workers, supposed to be able to continue providing care in this environment?”

The MSF facility in Tabarre was one of, if not the only, capable trauma centers left operating in Port-au-Prince. Its burn unit is the only such facility in the country.

When ABC News spoke to the head nurse there a few weeks ago, she said gunshot victims are more common these days than those from car accidents.

Haiti’s healthcare system is already on the brink of collapse and this will not help, just the latest in a series of closures MSF has been forced to make recently in the wake of the violence.

MSF had to temporarily close its hospital in the Drouillard section of Port-au-Prince in April 2022, permanently close its emergency center in Martissant in June 2021, and suspend its support for the Raoul Pierre Louis hospital in Carrefour in January 2023, all for security reasons.

It also recently shuttered a clinic it had opened in Cité Soleil, one of the most violent neighborhoods in the country.

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(NEW YORK) — For four days in a row, the planet reached its hottest day ever recorded as regions all over the world endure dangerous heat.

Earth warmed to the highest temperature ever recorded by human-made instruments when the average global temperature reached 17.18 degrees Celsius, or 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit, on Tuesday, as millions of Americans celebrated the Fourth of July, data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction shows.

On Wednesday, the record was tied as global temperatures again reached 17.18 degrees Celsius. That record was broken on Thursday as global temperatures climbed to 17.23 degrees Celsius, or 63.01 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the NCEP.

The record was first set on Monday, when average global temperatures measured at 16.2 degrees Celsius, or 61.16 degrees Fahrenheit, but it only took one day to surpass that temperature.

The heat blanketing much of Earth has been driven by El Niño in combination with the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming, researchers say.

Those conditions may prompt even hotter temperatures over the next six weeks, according to Robert Rohde, a physicist and lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit environmental data analysis group.

Although the data only exists after 1979, this week’s temperatures likely represent the record for long before global temperatures began to be recorded, Rhode said in a Twitter post on Wednesday.

“Global warming is leading us into an unfamiliar world,” Rhode tweeted.

The record was broken at the same time that some regions in the southern United States are facing a weeks-long heat wave with dangerous temperatures, as well as intense heat domes occurring elsewhere in the world in places like China and North Africa.

Earth had the warmest June on record for air temperature and for sea surface temperature, but July and August could prove to be even hotter as El Niño continues to strengthen, Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist based in Anchorage, Alaska, wrote on Twitter.

June global temperature has been climbing since 1980, Brettschneider said.

Heat is the number-one weather-related killer in the world, with more than 600 people dying from heat-related illnesses every year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At least 13 people have died from heat-related illness in Texas so far this summer.

ABC News’ Max Golembo, Tracy Wholf, Samantha Wnek and Ginger Zee contributed to this report.

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(KYIV, Ukraine) — Russia could stage an explosion at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to halt Ukrainian advances on the battlefield, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in a wide-ranging new interview with ABC News that was previewed on “World News with David Muir” on Thursday.

Speaking to ABC News’ Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz, Zelenskyy addressed fears that the power plant, which is the largest on the continent, could be sabotaged — with Ukrainian officials sounding the alarm that Russia has allegedly mined the facility in preparation for a false-flag operation to sabotage the plant and blame Ukraine.

The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency has said they have not seen evidence to back up Ukraine’s claims but they have also demanded more transparent access to the facility, which Russia took control of early in the invasion, as a matter of urgency.

“Are you concerned that the Russians might use explosives in the nuclear plant?” Raddatz asked.

“Are other explosives on the site? Yes,” Zelenskyy said. “Can they see explosives currently? No. Are there enough people who are … unbiased to make any conclusions with regard to how much of the site is contaminated with mines? No.”

He also said that there is a possibility Russia will blow up the plant in order to prevent Ukrainian advances from an ongoing counteroffensive, launched last month, that is aimed at retaking as much territory as possible in the eastern part of the country.

More from Raddatz’ interview with Zelenskyy in Ukraine will air on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday.

Ukrainian officials previously blamed Russia for sabotaging the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power plant in June, which led to widespread environmental damage and loss of life in both Ukrainian- and Russian-controlled areas.

Experts described the fallout as a “huge catastrophe for the ecosystem.”

Russia has denied responsibility and instead blamed Ukraine.

The American Nuclear Society issued a statement on Thursday saying that they were monitoring the situation at Zaporizhzhia but did not foresee bombardment or sabotage resulting in “radiation-related health consequences to the public.”

“In the unlikely event that containment structures were breached, any potential release of radiological material would be restricted to the immediate area surrounding the reactors,” the statement said.

“In this regard, any comparison between ZNPP and ‘Chernobyl’ or ‘Fukushima’ is both inaccurate and misleading,” the group continued, referring to two infamous nuclear accidents.

Ukraine’s intelligence chief on Thursday told Reuters there was a “decreasing” threat of such an attack but that could change.

“We are analyzing everything that is going on,” Zelenskyy told Raddatz. “Can we, based on this information, think that Russia is planning to explode the mines there in order to stop Ukrainian action in the battlefield? Well, yes, because if they lose even more initiative that they have, they will make some additional steps in order to make the entire world afraid of the global nuclear disaster and in order to stop all military action in the battlefield.”

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(NEW YORK) — For three days in a row, the planet reached its hottest day ever recorded as regions all over the world endure dangerous heat.

Earth warmed to the highest temperature ever recorded by human-made instruments when the average global temperature reached 17.18 degrees Celsius, or 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit, on Tuesday, as millions of Americans celebrated the Fourth of July, data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction shows.

On Wednesday, the record was tied as global temperatures again reached 17.18 degrees Celsius, according to the NCEP.

The record was first set on Monday, when average global temperatures measured at 16.2 degrees Celsius, or 61.16 degrees Fahrenheit, but it only took one day to surpass that temperature.

The heat blanketing much of Earth has been driven by El Niño in combination with the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming, researchers say.

Those conditions may prompt even hotter temperatures over the next six weeks, Robert Rohde, a physicist and lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit environmental data analysis group, tweeted on Wednesday.

Although the data only exists after 1979, Tuesday’s temperatures likely represent the record for long before global temperatures began to be recorded, Rhode said.

“Global warming is leading us into an unfamiliar world,” Rhode tweeted.

The record was broken at the same time that some regions in the southern U.S are facing a weeks-long heat wave with dangerous temperatures, as well as intense heat domes occurring elsewhere in the world in places like China and North Africa.

Earth had the warmest June on record for air temperature and for sea surface temperature, but July and August could prove to be even hotter as El Niño continues to strengthen, Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist based in Anchorage, Alaska, wrote on Twitter.

June global temperature has been climbing since 1980, Brettschneider said.

Heat is the number-one weather-related killer in the world, with more than 600 people dying from heat-related illnesses every year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At least 13 people have died from heat-related illness in Texas so far this summer.

ABC News’ Max Golembo, Tracy Wholf, Samantha Wnek and Ginger Zee contributed to this report.

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(LONDON) — A Princeton University graduate student is being held captive by an Iran-linked Shiite militia in Iraq where she was conducting field research for her Ph.D. in political science, according to officials and colleagues.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced in a statement on Wednesday that Elizabeth Tsurkov, an Israeli-Russian dual citizen, “has been missing in Iraq for several months and is being held by the Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah.”

Kataib Hezbollah is designated by the United States as a terrorist organization, accused of targeting American forces in Iraq. It is one of the most hard-line and powerful militias in Iraq, with close ties to Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Kataib Hezbollah is separate from the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Elizabeth Tsurkov is still alive and we hold Iraq responsible for her safety and well-being,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said. “She is an academic who visited Iraq on her Russian passport, at her own initiative pursuant to work on her doctorate and academic research on behalf of Princeton University in the U.S.”

There was no immediate comment from Iraqi officials.

Tsurkov would not have been allowed to enter Iraq on her Israeli passport, since the two countries do not have diplomatic relations and Iraq considers Israel a hostile state.

Princeton University, located in Princeton, New Jersey, released a brief statement on Wednesday saying Tsurkov is “a valued member” of the school’s community.

“We are deeply concerned for her safety and well-being, and we are eager for her to be able to rejoin her family and resume her studies,” the university added, without providing more details.

The New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, a think tank in Washington, D.C. where Tsurkov is a non-resident fellow, published an article via its New Lines Magazine on Wednesday saying Tsurkov had informed her colleagues on March 19 that she was done with fieldwork and wanted to return to Princeton University to write her doctoral dissertation.

“We were relieved. We did not want her to stay in an Iraq that was increasingly dominated by pro-Iranian militias,” the New Lines Magazine wrote. “Just over a week later we learned from our sources that a pro-Iranian militia had kidnapped her in Baghdad, where she had been doing research. We have not heard from her since.”

Tsurkov’s family had requested that her abduction not be publicized in hopes of negotiating a quick release, according to the magazine.

“What followed Liz’s kidnapping were months of public silence but nonstop efforts to learn more about her situation,” the magazine added.

The magazine noted that Tsurkov’s fieldwork “poses no threat to anyone,” however, as an Israeli national, “there are parts of the Middle East where her very identity places her at grave risk.”

“But Liz is committed to a specific style of granular, hyperlocal research that requires fieldwork, and she never seems frightened of anything,” the magazine wrote. “She stayed in Iraq.”

Tsurkov is also “an outspoken critic of all three of the major likely players involved in negotiating her release: Israel, Iran and Russia,” which complicates matters, according to the magazine.

“All of us feel that the United States needs to be involved in some way in helping Liz,” the magazine wrote. “She is not a U.S. national, and her disappearance did not trigger the sort of aggressive U.S. reaction that an American’s might. But Liz is very much a part of America. She works with a Washington think tank, writes for an American magazine and studies at Princeton University. She deserves America’s every effort to bring her to safety.”

ABC News has reached out to the U.S. Department of State for comment.

ABC News’ Laryssa Demkiw and Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Ukrainian officials have heightened warnings in recent days that Russia plans to blow up the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — the largest nuclear plant in Europe.

The plant has been at the center of concern since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Russian troops stormed the plant and took control on March 4, 2022, at one point kidnapping two top Ukrainian energy company officials.

The plant is located on the banks of the Dnipro River in the country’s southeast. It continues to be run by Ukrainian staff and has suffered many outages and even shelling since the war began.

Warnings have became more dire after Russia allegedly blew up the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power plant on June 6, with officials claiming the same could be done at Zaporizhzhia. The nuclear plant also relies on water from the reservoir to provide power for its turbine condensers, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Ukraine claims Russia has placed explosives at Zaporizhzhia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Telegram Tuesday that Ukrainian intelligence has information that Russian troops “have placed objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has insisted it is the Ukrainians who are planning an attack at the plant.

Satellite imagery of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from June 30 obtained by ABC News does not appear to show any objects on the roof of the plant.

In a statement on Wednesday, the IAEA said that while it has inspected sections of the power plant multiple times in recent weeks, it needs greater access to properly confirm the absence of mines or explosives at the site.

IAEA experts on site have conducted inspections, including regular walk downs across the site, but have not observed any visible indications of mines or explosives, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.

Last month, Ukrainian officials warned that Russia plans to stage a “terrorist attack” at the plant. Ukraine’s chief of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, claimed Russia had now completed preparation to potentially sabotage the plant if it chooses. He claimed the plant’s cooling pods have been rigged with explosives. If destroyed, that could lead to the reactor melting down.

“Whether the Kremlin decides to go ahead with this scenario today depends solely on the reaction of the global world,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, said in a statement in late June. “The red lines have to be defined. The consequences must be announced. Not tomorrow. Today.”

Disaster drills

Ukraine has been holding disaster drills in Zaporizhzhia, preparing residents in the surrounding area and showing them how to deal with a potential radioactive disaster.

ABC News was invited to the drills last week, about 30 miles from the plant, where firefighters in hazmat gear simulated decontaminating people from radiation during an evacuation.

Last year, Russian shelling even caused damage to the nuclear plant and cut power to the surrounding areas. The shelling came amid Russian attacks on Ukrainian power supplies.

The IAEA held talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials in November and December, with the goal of establishing a safe zone around the plant where there would be no fighting.

In October, Grossi said the perimeter of the power plant was mined, warning that a nuclear accident is a very clear possibility.

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(KYIV, Ukraine) — Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive has allowed their forces to take the “initiative” in the war against Russian invaders but “we want to do it faster,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz in a wide-ranging new interview previewed on Good Morning America Thursday.

“What is your assessment of how the counteroffensive is going right now?” Raddatz, ABC News’ chief global affairs correspondent, asked Zelenskyy in the sit-down from his nation’s capital.

He said that he supported his military’s assessment that the operation, which began in earnest last month, was “going to plan.”

“We would all like to see the counteroffensive accomplished in a shorter period of time, but there’s reality,” he said. “We are advancing. We are not stuck in one place.”

While Ukraine has succeeded in liberating a number of villages in recent weeks, progress has not matched the lightning speeds of last fall’s campaign — which saw Ukraine reclaim thousands of square miles of territory in one week in the Kharkiv region, Ukrainian officials said at the time.

“Today, the initiative is on our side,” Zelenskyy told Raddatz. “We are advancing, albeit not as fast [as we would like]. But we are advancing.”

Raddatz also asked about whether Ukraine can succeed without F-16s, the fighter aircraft Ukraine has asked for but not yet been provided and if the U.S. and others had been too slow to provide critical military equipment.

“F-16 or any other equipment that we do need will give us an opportunity to move faster, to save more lives, to stand our ground for a longer time,” Zelenskyy said. “Well, some weapons have been provided, on the other hand, helps us save lives and we appreciate that. Of course, foot dragging will lead to more lives lost.”

Despite the grinding progress and heavy losses, Ukraine’s military leaders remain confident that the operation, seen as key to securing a satisfactory peace, has been proceeding as expected, Zelenskyy said.

The U.S. has been a key ally as Ukraine has prepared to push back into occupied territory. Last week, U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the new offensive is “going to be very difficult, it’s going to be very long and it’s going to be very, very bloody.”

Zelenskyy told Raddatz in Kyiv that it was “too early” to report major successes on the battlefield.

Analysts suggest that Ukraine is keeping a large proportion of its assembled forces in reserve — with the hope of launching a major attack once a weak point has been identified along the front lines, which stretch for thousands of miles through eastern Ukraine.

Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, expressed confidence when he was asked by Raddatz earlier this week if he was confident of retaking the key city of Bakhmut.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “I’m sure.”

More from Raddatz’ interview with Zelenskyy in Ukraine will air on ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir on Thursday and on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. military released dramatic video of a tense encounter on Wednesday over the skies of eastern Syria as Russian fighter jets were seen “harassing” three American military drones carrying out a mission against the Islamic State group, an official said.

In a statement, the U.S. Air Force general in the Middle East labeled the run-in “unsafe and unprofessional behavior” and called on Russia to stop what he called “reckless behavior” that has been carried out by pilots flying over eastern Syria where the U.S. still has 900 troops assisting in anti-terrorism efforts.

The conduct “threaten[s] the safety of both U.S. and Russian forces,” he said.

Wednesday’s incident is the latest in a string of dozens of what officials describe as provocative Russian flights over eastern Syria, which prompted the U.S. to send F-22 Raptors to deter flights above American military bases there.

Multiple cameras and sensors aboard the three MQ-9 Reaper drones captured in vivid detail how the Russian Su-35 jets on Wednesday dropped parachuted flares in the drones’ path and one of the jets used its afterburners in front of one of the drones.

The quick declassification of the video capturing the encounter recalled a similar video release in March to show a Russian pilot’s similar harassment of an MQ-9 flying in international airspace above the Black Sea, resulting in a collision, officials said then.

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, the commander of the Ninth Air Force and the combined forces air component commander for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement that Russia initiated the altercation.

“Against established norms and protocols, the Russian jets dropped multiple parachute flares in front of the drones, forcing our aircraft to conduct evasive maneuvers,” Grynkewich said.

“Additionally, one Russian pilot positioned their aircraft in front of an MQ-9 and engaged afterburner, thereby reducing the operator’s ability to safely operate the aircraft,” he said.

“We urge Russian forces in Syria to cease this reckless behavior and adhere to the standards of behavior expected of a professional air force so we can resume our focus on the enduring defeat of ISIS,” he added.

In mid-June, CENTCOM announced that it was deploying F-22 Raptors to the Middle East to deter Russian flights above American bases in eastern Syria.

“Russian Forces’ unsafe and unprofessional behavior is not what we expect from a professional air force. Their regular violation of agreed upon airspace deconfliction measures increases the risk of escalation or miscalculation,” Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, head of CENTCOM, said then. “Alongside our partners and allies, we are committed to improving the security and stability in the region.”

Defense officials have said that there have been dozens of incidents in recent months where Russian jets have overflown American bases without using a safety line that has been in use for years to prevent miscalculations.

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