The Russian military on Sunday said « misleading » information from the Israeli airforce caused the downing of a Russian plane in Syria, and denounced the « adventurism » of Israeli pilots.
The Russian military on Sunday said « misleading » information from the Israeli airforce caused the downing of a Russian plane in Syria, and denounced the « adventurism » of Israeli pilots.
Military spokesman Igor Konashenkov presented the results of an investigation of how a Russian Ilyushin-20 with 15 troops on board was shot down by a Syrian air defence missile on September 17.
Moscow has accused Israel’s fighter pilots of using the bigger Ilyushin as cover, resulting in Syria’s Soviet-era S-200 air defence system interpreting the Russian plane as a target.
Israel denied this version of events and its air force commander flew to Moscow following the incident, which President Vladimir Putin called a result of a « chain of tragic accidental circumstances. »
It was the deadliest known case of friendly fire between Syria and key backer Russia since Moscow’s game-changing 2015 military intervention.
Konashenkov said the Russian military received a call from Israeli command at 1839 GMT warning that Israel would be striking « north of Syria », where the Il-20 surveillance aircraft was monitoring the Idlib de-escalation zone.
Russia ordered its plane back to base. Then, « one minute » after Israel’s call, its F-16 planes struck targets in Latakia in western Syria, he said.
« The misleading (information) by the Israeli officer regarding the location of the strikes made it impossible to guide the Il-20 to a safe location, » said Konashenkov.
As the Il-20 was landing near Latakia, one of the F-16 planes « began manoeuvres » at 1859 GMT « getting closer to the Il-20 », which was interpreted as a repeat attack by the Syrian air defence and resulted in it being shot down, he said.
« Monitoring the Il-20, the Israeli fighters used it as cover from the anti-aircraft missiles » and continued to patrol the area long after the Russian plane was shot down, he said.
Actions by the Israeli pilots « either speak of their unprofessionalism or criminal negligence at the very least, » Konashenkov said, reiterating that Israeli airforce was fully responsible for the downing of the plane.
He said the « adventurism » of the Israeli military could have even put in danger civilian planes which use the same airspace to land at the nearby Hmeimim aerodrome.
« This is a very ungrateful response to everything Russia has done for Israel, » he said.
