Interesting discussion , regardless of the real cause of this accident ( and I also personally doubt the UAV theory ) :
Hotel Tango :
If state or military operated, the operator would have full access to information on the traffic occupying that airspace.
definitively , however the vast majority of the UAvs accidents is when the operator contact is lost with the UAV a or if the UAV looses GPS contact and start doing things on its own , like descending for instance. And nobody likes to acknowledge they lost a UAV.
Chucks :
It seems unlikely that a drone small enough not to leave noticeable wreckage would have been flown high enough to collide with an aircraft at FL330 (was it?).
Both the US and The Russians have small High Altitude UAVs weighting less that 100K Kgs with a ceiling of 50-60.000ft . I've seen photos but not sure if they were prototypes or operational crafts. So technically possible : yes ,likely in our case , I would say no.
Finally for the conspirationists, this occurred at an FIR boundary, always a nice place to run classified missions. especially a NATO border.
