British Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the parliament’s defense committee, accused the government on Tuesday of covering up and downplaying the seriousness of a possible Russian “act of war” against a British aircraft in September.
Secret documents from the Pentagon (U.S. Department of Defense) released in recent weeks following a leak show that a Russian fighter jet shot down a British plane over the Black Sea on September 29, and that the British plane was “on the verge of was about to be shot.”
The documents in question showed that the Russian pilot misinterpreted information from a radar operator as a green light to fire and that the missile missed the target due to a technical problem.
A month after the incident British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told parliament that a Russian aircraft “launched a missile in close proximity” to a British aircraft and described the episode as a “potentially dangerous” interaction.
In an urgent question in the House of Commons today, Ellwood argued that the incident was more serious than the minister admitted, describing it as a possible “act of war”, the details of which “should be publicized and not hidden in intelligence reports”.
The Conservative MP, who was in the army before entering politics, asked the government whether “a Russian SU-27 (fighter) deliberately attempted to fire a missile at a British Air Force Rivet Joint (aircraft) over the Black Sea last September. Sea”. .
In the absence of Ben Wallace, who is in the United States, Secretary of Defense James Heappey replied that the executive branch could not comment on the secret reports published on social networks and in the media.
“The fact that these ostensibly declassified documents are in the public domain does not change their classification and, consequently, does not change the extent and form in which a minister and civil servant can respond to them,” explains Heappey.
Source: DN
