Memories of March

A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operating over Syria was “severely damaged” by flares discharged by a Russian Su-35 (Flanker-E) fighter jet then engaged in what Pentagon officials called “blatant disregard for flight safety.”

In a 25 July statement, the USAF contended the Russian fighter had harassed the MQ-9 while the latter was carrying out a mission against the Islamic State.

U.S. Central Command—which oversees American military operations in the Middle East region—reported the Su-35 “deployed flares from a position directly overhead, with only a few meters of separation between aircraft."

Allegations of severity notwithstanding, the damage wrought upon the MQ-9 was primarily to its aft pusher-propeller—which remained sufficiently functional to see the UAV return to its point of origin and land without further incident.

While Russia has yet to address the instance specifically, Moscow was quick to accuse the U.S. and its allies of “violating Syria’s airspace.”

Responding to the occurrence, USAF head of Air Forces Central Lieutenant General Alex Grynkewich stated: “We call upon the Russian forces in Syria to put an immediate end to this reckless, unprovoked and unprofessional behavior.”

General Grynkewich set forth Russian fighter jets and drones have repeatedly “buzzed” U.S. bases in Syria and violated protocols developed for purpose of precluding unsanctioned conflict between U.S. and Russian forces.

U.S. Army Head of Central Command General Michael Kurilla opined incidents the likes of the Russian Su-35 pilot’s engagement of the MQ-9 risk “unintended escalation and miscalculation.”

Currently, both Russian and U.S. forces are operating in Syria, each under the pretext of combating the Islamic State—a transnational militant Islamist terrorist group and former unrecognized quasi-state beholden to the Salafi jihadist branch of Sunni Islam. Founded by Abu Musab in 1999 and impelled to global notoriety in 2014 after capturing vast tracts of Iraqi territory, the Islamic State—known also as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), took advantage of the Syrian Civil War to seize control of territories in Eastern Syria.

The volatility of the Syrian theater has been exacerbated by the U.S.’s and Russia’s backing of opposing armed factions within the Middle Eastern nation.

The protocols referred to by General Grynkewich require U.S. and Russian servicemen to notify each other prior to transiting designated areas within Syria. According to Grynkewich, U.S. complaints of Russian violations of subject protocols have been ignored to increasing degrees by Russian commanders and Moscow alike.

In June 2023, the Pentagon accused Russia of 85 protocol violations—including 26 flights over U.S. military bases by armed aircraft—since 01 March.

On 17 July, a Russian Su-35 intercepted and came into dangerously close proximity of a USAF MC-12 (Huron) surveilling Islamic State operatives in Syria. Wake turbulence from the Russian fighter imperiled the lives of the four airmen aboard the MC-12—a militarized Beechcraft King Air 350 retrofitted for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) operations.

General Grynkewich has openly attributed the recent escalation in U.S./Russo aerial aggression to the personal motivations of a number of Russian officers. Invoking estoppel, Grynkewich cited Moscow’s citation and decoration of the Su-27 pilots by whose actions a U.S. MQ-9 was brought down over the Black Sea in March 2023.

According to the Pentagon, some nine-hundred U.S. troops are currently boots-down in Syria, fighting alongside contractors (mercenaries) and Kurdish combatants to diminish the world’s terrorist population.

Russia, conversely, has allied itself with Iran—the Islamic fundamentalist government of which shares Moscow’s aspiration to drive the U.S. military presence from Syria.

FMI: www.defense.gov