The State Department called off two briefings that had been scheduled for Wednesday, Senate and House aides confirm to CNN.

Congressional lawmakers had been slated to receive a briefing on embassy security while the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had expected to hear from top State Department officials about the administration’s Iran policy and authorities for the use of force before the last-minute schedule changes.

FBI officials had been expected to brief a group of House lawmakers on counterintelligence issues related to Iran on Wednesday in a separate closed-door session but those plans also changed at the last moment, according to two sources familiar with the planning. The reason for the cancellation remains unclear but the briefing was added to the calendar late last week, one of the sources said.

The FBI did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Additionally, the Pentagon scrapped Thursday’s classified briefing on Iran for the House Armed Services Committee due to scheduling issues, according to a US defense official and House side.

Reuters, citing TASS news agency, reported that Sergei Ryabkov, a deputy foreign minister, called the test regrettable.

“The United States has obviously taken the course of escalating military tensions. We will not succumb to provocations,” he said.

The U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on Aug. 2.

Russia just of recent suffered what many believe was a nuclear-powered missile test failure at a remote base.  There has been speculation about what kind of missile was being tested at the time. One theory in Forbes said Moscow was testing a “mega-torpedo,” 30 times larger than the conventional ones found on submarines.

The explosion prompted President Trump to take to Twitter to say that the U.S. was monitoring the situation, but has more advanced technology.

The Department of Defense said in a statement that 20-year-old Pfc. Brandon Jay Kreischer of Stryker, Ohio, and 24-year-old Spc. Michael Isaiah Nance of Chicago died “as a result of wounds sustained in a combat related incident” on Monday in Tarin Kowt, located in the southern part of Afghanistan.

“These young men were true All Americans and embodied the qualities of selfless service and courage as they answered our nation’s call to deploy to Afghanistan,” Col. Arthur Sellers, Commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, said in a statement. “Our focus is now providing their loved ones with every available resource to help them in this most difficult time.”

Both soldiers were assigned to the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Nance got into the Army in early 2017, and completed Basic Combat Training, Advanced Individual Training and Airborne School at Fort Benning, Ga. before being assigned to 1-505th PIR as an automatic rifleman, according to the Pentagon. He is survived by his father in Chicago and mother in Glenwood, Illinois.

The 24-year-old’s awards and decorations include the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and the Global War on Terror Service Medal, the Combat Infantryman Badge, and the Basic Parachutist Badge.

The Defense Department indicated that the location of the shoot-down was outside Iranian-claimed territorial waters.

(The Pentagon)

However, Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, posted a map on Twitter disputing the information provided by the Pentagon.  Iran’s map — Zarif tweeted out a picture of it — included handwritten notes suggesting that the drone was shot down about eight miles from Iranian shores, within Iranian airspace.

He tweeted, “At 00:14 US drone took off from UAE [United Arab Emirates] in stealth mode & violated Iranian airspace. It was targeted at 04:05 at the coordinates (25°59’43″N 57°02’25″E) near Kouh-e Mobarak. We’ve retrieved sections of the US military drone in OUR territorial waters where it was shot down.”

Iran threw shades at the Navy high-altitude drone out of the sky over the Strait of Hormuz, with United States Central Command leaders on Thursday slamming the “unprovoked” strike and Tehran’s subsequent “false” justifications for it.

United States Central Command said in a statement that a United States Navy Broad Area Maritime Surveillance ISR aircraft, known as a BAMS-D, was shot down about 7:35 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

The drone cost about $110 million, according to a Navy official.

The U.S. Navy’s RQ-4A Global Hawk drone provides real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions “over vast ocean and coastal regions,” according to the military.