According to reports by Russian military sources, a coalition drone commanded by the United States came perilously close to a Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) Su-34 aircraft that was operating in Syria on Friday.
On July 27, the deputy head of the Russian Centre for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in SAR, Oleg Gurinov, said that on the part of the so-called international anti-terrorist coalition that the United States leads, 15 cases of violation of the deconfliction protocols of December 9, 2019, were recorded per day. These violations were related to flights of unmanned aerial vehicles that were not coordinated with the Russian side. The statement comes a day after the United States accused the Russians of causing damage to an MQ-9 Reaper when a Su-35 aircraft released pyrotechnics near it.
Oleg Gurinov reported that on July 28 at 7:55 a.m., at an altitude of 5,000 metres near the settlement of Nafra in the province of Raqqa, another dangerous convergence between the MQ-9 “coalition” unmanned aerial vehicle and the Su-34 aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces was recorded.
He pointed out that the flight of the ‘coalition’ unmanned aerial vehicle in this area was not deconflicted again.
According to Gurinov’s statement, Russian pilots showed high professionalism by swiftly taking the required precautions to avoid a collision with the unmanned aerial vehicle belonging to the “coalition.”
According to him, the Russian side is concerned about the provocative and aggressive operations against the Russian VKS unmanned aerial vehicles.
According to the deputy head of CROS, on July 27 at 10:20 a.m., in the region close to the hamlet of El Ankawi in the province of Hama, the Russian unmanned aerial vehicle Orlan-10 was the target of radio-electronic interference in its control channels, which was followed by an attempt to spoof its navigation field.
The CROS official said the unmanned aerial vehicle successfully returned to its home base in Russia because the Russian military experts and pilots did a fantastic job carrying out their responsibilities.
He said that over 24 hours, the United States-led coalition had made 12 cases of deconfliction protocol violations connected to unauthorised flights of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Additionally, he noted that in the region of At-Tanf, traversed by international airlines, there were eight violations of Syrian airspace by the US-led Coalition. It included flights by two pairs of F-16 fighters, one pair of Typhoon fighters, and one pair of MC-12W “coalition” reconnaissance aircraft.
