Russian politician proposes shooting down US planes over Syria
The Russian military may shoot down more than just US-guided drones if there is another assault on its air base in Syria, warned Vladimir Shamanov, head of the State Duma Defense Committee. Russia may even target the American aircraft from which the drones are believed to be controlled.
Shamanov stresses that Moscow’s accusations that Washington attacked the Khmeimim Air Base using drones controlled from a US Poseidon 8 aircraft are based on “reliably gathered information”.
“Next time, this gives us the moral right to attack this aircraft and shoot it down,” Interfax cites the Russian MP as saying.
“This is even, to use professional language, an inadmissible thing, because any malfunction of the guidance system could lead to unpredictable consequences, and this is unethical and is a violation with respect to the law,” Shamanov adds.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, since the start of the year, the Khmeimim Air Base has been attacked by drones on several occasions. 13 drones attacked the Khmeimim base and the Naval logistics point in Tartus on the night of January 5. The Russian military department claims that seven of them were shot down and the rest were captured by specialists in the electronic warfare divisions.
On October 25, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin blamed the US for the drone attacks.
“13 drones came in a single military order, controlled by one team. At the time, the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane had been patrolling the waters of the Mediterranean Sea for eight hours,” Fomin observed.
He claims that when the drones crossed into the Russian electronic warfare curtain, they withdrew a certain distance, received commands, and then were “guided from space, and received prompts about holes, which they began to penetrate”.