Putin calls downing of Russian plane ‘tragic,’ absolves Israel
JERUSALEM — Syrian forces accidentally shot down a Russian military plane after an Israeli airstrike on Syrian territory, Kremlin officials said Tuesday, the worst case of friendly fire for Russia in the Syria war.
The accident on Monday night briefly caused a crisis in Russia-Israel relations as the Kremlin blamed the Israelis, underscoring the risks of escalation from unintended consequences among the different forces operating in Syria.
All 15 Russian service members aboard were killed in the antiaircraft barrage that downed the plane, which had apparently been misidentified by Syrian gunners as Israeli.
Russia intervened in Syria three years ago to help President Bashar alAssad prevail in a brutal civil war. The Russians have shown extraordinary tolerance toward Israel’s military, which has carried out more than 200 airstrikes over two years in Syria aimed at Iran-backed Shiite militias that Israel regards as a threat.
Despite anger by the Russian military, fears of a Russia-Israel confrontation were dampened by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. He placed blame for the downing of the plane, an Ilyushin Il-20 surveillance aircraft, on “a chain of tragic accidental circumstances” and not just on Israel.
Mr. Putin drew a distinction between the downing of a Russian fighter plane by Turkey in 2015, which he condemned at the time as a “stab in the back delivered by the accomplices of terrorists,” and Monday’s accident, “because an Israeli plane didn’t shoot our plane down.”
But, “without any doubt, we need to seriously get to the bottom of what happened,” he said.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry had angrily accused Israel of hiding its F-16s behind the Russian plane, effectively turning the less stealthy Russian Il20 into a target for Syria’s antiaircraft missiles. Russia also suggested that Israel had abused the countries’ coordination system that is meant to avoid such accidents, by providing only a minute’s notice before its fighters struck a Syrian air base — too little time for the Russian plane to avoid the crossfire.
Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, in remarks released Tuesday afternoon just as Mr. Putin was trying to calm anger at Israeli actions, said Israel had deliberately used the Russian surveillance plane as cover for its own warplanes “on the assumption that Syria’s air defenses would not be operating in that area.”
Russia, Mr. Shoigu told senior military officials, had informed Israel that “we are not going to leave such actions, such steps, unanswered,” the news agency Interfax reported.
In a telephone call later with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Putin, according to the Kremlin, complained that the Israeli Air Force had violated Syrian sovereignty and that “Russian-Israeli agreements on preventing dangerous incidents had not been observed either, and that resulted in the Russian aircraft coming under Syrian air defense fire.”
But there was no mention in the Kremlin’s account of the telephone conversation of any warning of possible Russian retaliation.
In a departure from its normal policy of declining to comment on military actions, the Israeli Defense Forces released a lengthy statement that expressed sorrow for the loss of life and held Assad’s government “fully responsible.” It added that Iran and Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group that operates in Syria and that is a bitter enemy of Israel, were also accountable.
Citing an “intolerable threat,” Israel said its jets were targeting a military facility in Syria from which weapons-manufacturing systems were to be transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon. It added that the antiaircraft missiles fired by Syria had been inaccurate and had been fired indiscriminately.