A fully armed MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle taxis down the runway at an air base in Afghanistan on its way to another wartime mission. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson).
The United States-led coalition’s drones were spotted flying over Syria five times during the past day in violation of the memorandum of understanding with Russia, Rear Admiral Oleg Gurinov, deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria said on June 30.
“During the day, five violations of the memorandum of understanding between the Russian Defense Ministry and the US Department of Defense of October 26, 2015 linked with the flights of the so-called US-led international anti-terrorist coalition’s unmanned aerial vehicles were reported. None agreed with the Russian side,” the commander said.
Gurinov didn’t mention where the flights took place. However, coalition drones are known to operate over the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib, which is controlled by al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and other terrorist groups, on a regular basis.
Just a week earlier, three fully-armed U.S. combat drones were spotted over different parts of Greater Idlib at the same time.
Coalition drones also operate over the government-held central region, where ISIS cells have been waging an insurgency for a few years now.
While the U.S.-led coalition claims that its operations in Syria are directed against ISIS and other terrorist groups, its drones may be also collecting intelligence on government forces and their allies, including the Russian military.
Tensions between Russian and U.S. forces in Syria have been mounting since Moscow launched a special military operation in Ukraine last year.
The U.S. maintains some 900 troops in Syria, all of them are deployed between key oil and gas fields in the northeastern region of the country and on the strategic Damascus-Baghdad highway in the southeastern region. Damascus does not approve of this presence and considers it to be an occupation.
Meanwhile the Russian military deployment in Syria, which is sanctioned by Damascus, is much larger. Russian troops are deployed at two large bases in the western region and dozens of smaller positions throughout the country.
In recent months, both sides exchanged accusations of provocations and unprofessional aerial operations over Syria. While this tension could lead to some accident in the near future, a military confrontation between the two remains highly unlikely.
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