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Conflict in Syria

Defense Ministry: US plane spotted near Hmeymim during terror attack on Russian facilities

A Russian Defense Ministry source says a US Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft was spotted cruising between Tartus and Hmeymim during a drone attack on Russian military facilities in Syria

© AP Photo/Mauricio Cuevas

MOSCOW, January 9. /TASS/. A US Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft was detected cruising between Tartus and Hmeymim during a UAV attack on the Russian military facilities in Syria, which was carried out by terrorists, a source in the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

"…it is a strange coincidence that during a UAV attack on the Russian military facilities in Syria, a US Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft was cruising for more than four hours over the Mediterranean Sea at an altitude of 7,000 meters," the source said.

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Besides, the Russian Defense Ministry has voiced concern over the statements made by a Pentagon spokesman, in which he said that technologies used to attack the Russian military facilities were easily available on the open market. "The questions are: what kind of technologies they meant, where that ‘open market’ is and which special service sells space surveillance data," the Russian Defense Ministry’s source said.

He added that the ministry’s statement concerning the handover of technologies needed to carry out a UAV attack on Russian military facilities in Syria had mentioned neither any particular country nor provided details of those technologies.

"Although the programming of systems to control unmanned aerial vehicles and drop GPS-guided munitions requires completing engineering studies in a developed country. Besides, not everyone is capable of calculating exact coordinates using space surveillance data. We would like to stress once again that terrorists did not have anything of that kind until recently," the source concluded.

The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier that on January 6, the Russian military facilities in Hmeymim and Tartus were attacked by unmanned aerial vehicles controlled by terrorists. The Russian military either destroyed or took control of the UAVs used in the attack.

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