Russian fighter jet strikes American MQ-9 drone flying over Syria

A Russian fighter jet struck and damaged an American drone flying over Syria, the US military said Tuesday. This was yet another aggressive intercept by Moscow as the tensions with Washington continue over the year-long war in Ukraine. The US Air Force Central in a statement said that a Russian fighter aircraft flew dangerously close to a US MQ-9 drone on a defeat-ISIS mission on July 23.

The Russian jet harassed the MQ-9 and deployed flares from a position directly overhead, with only a few meters of separation between the aircraft, the statement said. "One of the Russian flares struck the U.S. MQ-9, severely damaging its propeller," Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, the head of US Air Forces Central, said.

Fortunately, the MQ-9 crew was able to maintain flight and safely recover the aircraft to its home base, Grynkewich said, adding that the Russian fighter's "blatant disregard" for flight safety detracts from America's mission to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS. "We call upon the Russian forces in Syria to put an immediate end to this reckless, unprovoked, and unprofessional behavior."

This incident comes just over a week after a Russian fighter jet harassed a manned US surveillance aircraft over Syria. The incident was at least the fifth face-off between US and Russian military aircraft that America deemed unsafe or unprofessional since the beginning of the month, CNN reported last week.

Tensions between the US and Russia have been mounting over America's support to Kyiv in the war that Moscow began last February. The war is proving to be costly for Moscow as Western military support led by the US is denying any victory to Russia and draining its resources and manpower, frustrating Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Associated Press reported that Army Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was uncertain what triggered the sharp increase in encounters between both the military fighter jets in the sky. "We have got analysts trying to figure that out. I don't know if it's connected to Ukraine or not. Right now, there's nothing to suggest that it is,” he told reporters during a recent briefing.

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Some officers suggested that it stems from a growing coordination among Russia, Syria, and Iran and is meant to persuade the US to leave Syria, thus opening the door for more Iranian activity, particularly in the South, AP reported.

Randa Slim, director of the Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told AP that before the war in Ukraine, Syria was "seen by the Russians as an arena for competition as well as cooperation with the US."

Their shared interest, he said, in Syria included limiting Iran and Turkey's footprints, preventing a military escalation between Iran and Israel that could provoke a regional war, promoting a political solution to the war in Syria, and denying the Islamic State a safe haven.

However, since the war in Ukraine, Slim said "there is an increasing convergence between the Russian and Iranian positions around an endgame that sees US forces pushed out of Syria." The US and other allies of Ukraine have accused Iran of supplying hundreds of drones to Russia for its war effort, which Moscow denies.

(With inputs from Associated Press)

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