MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. The Russian Center for Reconciliation of the opposing parties in Syria has registered an incident in which a US F-16 fighter jet used its targeting system on an aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces, the center’s deputy chief Rear Adm. Oleg Gurinov said on Thursday.
"Ten violations of the Syrian airspace, committed by four pairs of F-16 fighters and one pair of Rafale fighters of the ‘coalition,’ were registered in the Al Tanf zone, an area where international air traffic routes are located. At the same time, it was registered that an F-16 fighter jet used its targeting system on a plane of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which was performing a scheduled flight along the southern border of the Syrian Arab Republic," he said.
According to Gurinov, the US-led coalition violated deconfliction protocols 12 times over the past 24 hours, as it sent its unmanned aerial vehicles on missions that were not coordinated with Russia’s forces.