MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/. A US-led coalition’s MQ-9 Reaper drone dangerously approached a Russian fighter jet in Syria’s Homs governorate, Yury Popov, deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria (a division of the Russian defense ministry), said on Monday.
"From 9:23 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Moscow time (6:23 a.m. - 6:30 a.m. GMT) on June 30, a coalition’s MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance combat unmanned aerial vehicle dangerously approached a Russian An-30 plane making a planned flight over Syria at an altitude of from 6,000 to 7,000 meters," he said, adding that the Russian pilot demonstrated high professionalism and took timely measures to prevent a collision.
According to Popov, two pairs of the coalition’s F-15, a pair of Rafale and a pair of Typhoon fighter jets, as well as a pair of A-10 Thunderbolt attack bombers violated Syria’s airspace in the al-Tanf area, across which international air routes run, ten times during the day. Apart from that, in his words, seven violations of the deconfliction protocols of December 9, 2019 linked with the flights by the US-led coalition unmanned aerial vehicles were reported in Syria in the past 24 hours.
"During the day, two shelling attacks on positions of government forces from positions of the Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic Party of Turkestan (both outlawed in Russia) were reported in the Idlib de-escalation zone," he said, adding that one Syrian soldier was killed as a result of one of these attacks.