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The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense has announced that two Russian fighter jets “repeatedly and dangerously” intercepted an unarmed British Royal Air Force surveillance plane over the Black Sea.

Getting into it: According to the MoD, the encounter involved two separate intercepts of an RAF RC-135W Rivet Joint (an unarmed reconnaissance plane that carries a crew of up to 30 and uses advanced sensors to collect and analyze electronic signals) while it was conducting a routine surveillance flight in international airspace as part of NATO’s efforts to monitor Russian military activity and secure the alliance’s eastern flank. In the first intercept, a Russian Su-35 fighter flew close enough to the Rivet Joint to trigger its emergency systems and disable its autopilot, and in the second, a Russian Su-27 conducted six separate passes directly in front of the British plane, at one point closing to within six meters (roughly 19 feet) of its nose while the aircraft was traveling at around 500 mph.

The ministry put out a 12-second clip it says shows the encounter, and said UK defense and foreign ministry officials had lodged a formal complaint with the Russian embassy this week. It also said this was the worst Russian move against a UK Rivet Joint since 2022, when a Russian jet loosed a missile near a British spy plane in the same waters (Moscow blamed a “technical malfunction” at the time, though Western defense sources later told the BBC the launch actually traced back to the pilot acting on a murky order from Russian ground control).

Defense Secretary John Healey condemned the maneuvers as reckless and warned that “these actions create a serious risk of accidents and potential escalation.” Healey added, “I would like to pay tribute to the outstanding professionalism and bravery of the RAF crew who continued with their mission despite these dangerous actions. Let me be very clear: This incident will not deter the UK’s commitment to defend NATO, our allies and our interests from Russian aggression.”

The intercepts landed just days after Healey went public about the Royal Navy spending a month shadowing three Russian submarines he says were running a “covert operation” in Atlantic waters to the UK’s north, where the subs sat near vital undersea cables and pipelines (a monitoring mission that involved around 500 personnel, more than 450 hours of UK aircraft flight time, and a navy frigate logging several thousand nautical miles). Healey had warned at the time that any Russian move to hit UK cables and pipelines would bring “serious consequences.”

There has been no immediate reaction from Russia to the UK’s statement.