Misleading information from Israel caused downing of plane: Russia
Moscow, Russia - The Russian military on Sunday said ‘misleading’ information from the Israeli airforce caused the downing of a Russian plane in Syria, and denounced the ‘adventurism’ of Israeli pilots.
Military spokesman Igor Konashenkov presented the results of an investigation of how a Russian Ilyushin-20 with 15 troops on board was shot down by a Syrian air defence missile on September 17.
Moscow has accused Israel’s fighter pilots of using the bigger Ilyushin as cover, resulting in Syria’s Soviet-era S-200 air defence system interpreting the Russian plane as a target.
Israel denied this version of events and its air force com- mander flew to Moscow following the incident, which President Vladimir Putin called a result of a ‘chain of tragic accidental circumstances’. It was the deadliest case of friendly fire between Syria and key backer Russia since Moscow’s 2015 military intervention.
Konashenkov said the Russian military received a call from Israeli command at 1839 GMT warning that Israel would be striking ‘north of Syria’, where the Il-20 surveillance aircraft was monitoring the Idlib de-escalation zone. Russia ordered its plane back to base. Then, ‘one minute’ after Israel’s call, its F-16 planes struck targets in Latakia in western Syria, he said.
“The misleading (information) by the Israeli officer regarding the location of the strikes made it impossible to guide the Il-20 to a safe location.”