Russia says China acting responsibly over balloon incident

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Monday that he was confident China was taking the responsible course of action over an incident in which a Chinese balloon travelled into U.S. airspace, the RIA news agency reported.

The United States, which said the object was a surveillance balloon, has shot it down. China maintains that it was a civilian aircraft and protested the response as an “obvious overreaction”.

China says US shooting down balloon ‘damaged’ relations