The Russian Defense Ministry has issued a statement Tuesday clarifying the fate of an Il-20 plane reported shot down off the coast of Syria the night before. Officials now confirm it was shot down by a Syrian S-200 missile, but that it was the fault of Israeli F-16 warplanes.
Four Israeli F-16s attacked Syria’s coastline from offshore, and the defense ministry says the jets used the larger Russian surveillance plane as “cover” during the attack, and when the air defense system tried to target the Israeli attackers, they hit the Russian plane by mistake, killing 15 Russian service members.
The Israeli military insisted this entirely wasn’t their fault, and that Syria is “fully responsible.” In later statements, they blamed Iran and Hezbollah as well, saying that Israel was attacking a weapons factory in Latakia.
Russia is clearly not happy, saying they reserve the right to “respond accordingly.” It’s not clear what that will mean, but Russia has repeatedly, publicly warned Israel to stay away from Latakia, and this is likely to do substantial harm to Russia-Israel ties.
Does the Putin is God brigade consider this to be another chess masterstroke?
Does the Israel is God brigade consider this to be just another antisemitic outrage, when all Israel is doing is — doing God’s work?
You’d have to ask them. As for me, there should have been immediate large scale Russian retaliation.
This will eventually have to happen. Firstly, because Israel never knows how to moderate its demands and will be encouraged if not slapped. Snd second, Russia of course knows that peace in the region cannot be achieved, unless Israel accepts the right of existence of sovereign states in its neighborhood. Neither very likely. But Russia had the obligation to work with Israel, take into account its core interests, and accommodate them by assurances it can provide. Yes, I can see how Israel’s past behaviour does not give much hope for a rational solution. But Russia must travel this road — from the friend and partner, through attempts of keeping Israel at least neutral in the matters of Syrian peace. This is like driving — you cannot change from Forward to Backward without going through Neutral. Russia needs to build the case, restructure diplomacy, get allies, and economic leverage before acting. And the place and time must never be advertised.
Russia’s diplomacy has not changed for a long time. Enemies must be converted to neutral, neutral to partner, and partner to ally. And backwards.
But Israel is nit doing as well as we are led to believe. Leasing ports to China, hoping to get both money and leverage with China. As if China and Russia are that stupid.
Israel is counting on its Russiaphobic US, UK and other European lobbies to pressure Russia on any ridiculous and buzzare charge they can think of. This is their style. But amazingly, the more ridiculous they get, the less believable they are.
Amaxingly also, cutting UN refugee funding to Palestinians will soon have consequences to US one and only trully obedient ally in the region — Jordan. Without refugee status, Palestinians are citizens, and constitute well over 50% o population. This may end up being the first Palestinian state. And all Russia and Turkey need to do is to declare Gaza independent. There are many, many options for chipping away at Israel. As for its global sponsors, I doubt they will start WWIII over Israel’s woes.
Amen. Russia could do more, but they don’t. They have few reasonable excuses other than keeping their allies just strong enough to survive while remaining completely dependent on their aid. There’s more than one military industrial complex.
Lets hope that Russia starts targeting IDF terrorist aircraft and downs many of them. The Zionist menace needs a lesson very soon…
Israel bombing Syria needs to stop.
Ru.ssia won’t do jack. In fact, Israel needs to shoot down few more Russian jets and piss on Pu.tin’s shoes to demonstrate their invincibility on the global stage.