I agree most likely the drone was shot down. Order of events matters, though. Did the russkies fire at the drone or fire back at the drone?
US military has confirmed they use these drones to collect and feed Ukes intelligence on russkie movements, targeting, etc.
Does that not make it a legit military target?
Just asking before peeps get their panties in a wad.
The drone would have been unarmed with a reconnaissance package. It wasn't there to shoot at Russians. No real risk to the fighter pilots So, the Russians would have made the first move. It would not have been anything dangerous to their aircraft or pilots. Those are too valuable to lose.
But one thing they would want is to salvage an intact recon package. The best chance of that would be to do something that disabled the drone without smashing it into little pieces. No missiles, then. Even cannon fire might be too much.
The Russians have brilliant engineers. They probably came up with something inexpensive they thought might work and tried it out. Something that would wreck the propulsion system without damage to the rest of the unit.
Did it work? Nobody who knows is going to tell us.
My guess is that the drone was ditched in the Caspian Sea and the Russians may try to salvage it if they can. The drone mission planners may have installed self-destruct mechanisms before the drone launched, or maybe they did not consider that important.