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