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Russia blames Israel for plane crash killing all 15 people on board
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A RUSSIAN reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by a Syrian missile over the Mediterranean Sea, killing all 15 people on board, the Russian Defense Ministry said yesterday. It blamed Israel for the crash, saying the plane was caught in the crossfire as four Israeli fighters attacked targets in northwestern Syria.
The Russian military said the Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft was hit 35 kilometers offshore late Monday as it was returning to its home base nearby.
“The Israeli pilots were using the Russian aircraft as a shield and pushed it into the line of fire of the Syrian defense,” Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu called his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, later yesterday to say that Israel is “fully to blame” for the deaths, the ministry said.
The military said Israel did not warn it of its operation over Latakia province until one minute before the strike, which did not give the Russian plane enough time to escape.
The Israeli military said in a statement yesterday that its jets were already within Israeli airspace when the incident occurred. Israel offered condolences over the death of the Russian troops but said it holds the Syrian government “fully responsible.” It also blamed Iran and Hezbollah for what it described as an “unfortunate incident.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said a recovery operation has already located the plane’s wreckage at sea and has retrieved some bodies and some fragments of the plane.
Also yesterday, President Vladimir Putin said that the shooting down of a Russian military plane near Syria’s seacoast was the result of a chain of tragic and chance circumstances.
“It looks most likely in this case that it was a chain of tragic chance events, because an Israeli aircraft did not shoot down our aircraft. But, without any doubt we need to seriously get the bottom of what happened,” Putin said after talks with Hungary’s prime minister in Moscow.
For several years, Israel and Russia have kept a special hotline to prevent their air forces from clashing in the skies over Syria. Israeli military officials have previously praised its effectiveness.
Russia’s entry into the Syrian civil war in 2015 in support of the Syrian government, after a year of airstrikes by the US and its coalition partners against the Islamic State group, increased the specter of dangerous confrontations in the skies over Syria.
Turkey’s troops are also on the ground in northern Syria and are patrolling the skies over the region as Ankara seeks to ramp up its influence there and curb the expansion of Syrian Kurdish-controlled territory.
Israel has refrained from taking sides in the Syrian civil war. But it has acknowledged carrying out scores of airstrikes against archenemy Iran and its Shiite proxy Hezbollah.
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