MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. A US-led coalition’s drone dangerously approached a Russian fighter jet in Syria, Oleg Gurinov, deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria (a division of the Russian defense ministry), said on Sunday.

"At 6:53 a.m. on July 30, the [pro-American] coalition’s MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle once again dangerously approached a Russian Su-34 plane to a distance of at least 100 meters near the settlement of Raqqa," he said, adding that the drone’s flight was not deconflicted.

"Thanks to the high professionalism of Russian pilots and their timely measures, the collision with the coalition’s drone was prevented," he stressed.

According to Gurinov, twelve violations of the deconfliction protocols of December 9, 2019 linked with the flights by the coalition drones were reported in Syria in the past 24 hours.

"Four pairs of the coalition’s F-16, two pairs of F-35 fighter jets and one coalition’s MQ-1C multi-purpose unmanned aerial vehicle violated Syria’s airspace in the al-Tanf area, across which international air routes run, 13 times during the day," he said.

He also said that one shelling attack on the positions of Syrian government troops by militants from Turkestan Islamic Party terrorist group (outlawed in Russia) was reported in the Idlib de-escalation zone.