Leaked US intel describes Russian attempt to shoot down British spy plane

A Russian fighter jet mistakenly fired a missile at a British surveillance craft in September, according to a New York Times report based on information from recently leaked US intelligence documents. 

The event, per the Washington Post, occurred on September 29, 2022, off the coast of Crimea. 

According to two US defense officials, the Russian pilot misinterpreted instructions from a radar operator on the ground, and thought he had permission to fire, the Times reported. 

The British craft in question, a Boeing RC-135 Riven Joint electronic intelligence aircraft, is one of several initially purchased from the United States in 2010, according to a report from Flightglobal, an international aerospace news outlet. The Kyiv Independent explained that the RC-135 usually has a crew of about 30 and can intercept radio signals. 

In October, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace described the incident as "potentially dangerous," explaining that the Russian plane "released a missile in the vicinity" of the British craft. However, the Times report pointed out, the leaked documents describe the event as a "near-shoot down." According to the Washington Post, Wallace attributed the near-miss to a "technical malfunction."

US officials who spoke anonymously to the Kyiv Independent described the event as "really, really scary." The British aircraft was reportedly listening to intercepted communications of a Russian radar operator on the ground when one Russian pilot in a Su-27 fighter jet was sent to monitor the spycraft and subsequently fired the missile. 

Regarding the Times' reporting and the leaked document, a British defense official said that “a significant proportion of the content of these reports is untrue, manipulated, or both. We strongly caution against anybody taking the veracity of these claims at face value and would also advise them to take time to question the source and purpose of such leaks.”

Leaked US intelligence documents 

Highly classified military and intelligence documents that appeared online, with details ranging from Ukraine's air defenses to Israel's Mossad spy agency, have US officials scrambling to identify the leak's source, with some Western security experts and US officials saying they suspected it could be someone from the United States.

Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.

"The focus now is on this being a US leak, as many of the documents were only in US hands," Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters in an interview.

Reuters contributed to this report.