Russia threatens to treat US coalition aircraft as targets over Syria

MOSCOW – Russia on Monday angrily condemned the downing of a Syrian aircraft by a U.S. fighter as a "flagrant violation of international law," and said its forces will treat U.S.-led coalition aircraft and drones as targets if they are operating in Syrian airspace west of the Euphrates in areas while Russian aviation is on combat missions.

The Russian defense ministry also said it is suspending an agreement to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents between Russian and U.S.-led coalition aircraft operating over Syria.

Russia, which has provided military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2015, was reacting to U.S. military confirmation that a U.S. F-18 Super Hornet shot down a Syrian SU-22 fighter-bomber on Sunday. The Syrian jet had just dropped bombs near forces known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, which are aligned with the U. S. military in the campaign against the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, U.S.-backed opposition fighters said that Assad's forces have been attacking their positions in the northern Raqqa province, and warned that they would take action if the attacks continue.

On Monday, the Russian defense ministry said that its warplanes had been in operation in the area of the encounter between the U.S. and Syrian jets, and said that the coalition had not used the deconflicting hotline to warn the Russian jet.

"Multiple military actions of U.S. aviation under the guise of fighting terrorism against the legal military of a state that is a member of the United Nations are a flagrant violation of international law and constitute de facto military aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic," the ministry said.

"We view these actions by the American command as a conscious failure to neglect their responsibilities within the memorandum," the ministry said.

Russia briefly suspended the 2015 memorandum of understanding on the air operations after U.S. forces fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base in April.

Also on Monday, a senior Russian diplomat warned that the downing of the Syrian jet was "yet another step in a direct and dangerous escalation."

"We are warning Washington not to take such actions in the future," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency.

The confrontation took place late Sunday near the central city of Tabqa, hours after Syrian government forces harassed a U.S.-backed local ground force with airstrikes.

It was the first time that the American military has shot down a Syrian warplane during the six-year conflict, and followed a series of U.S. airstrikes against Iran-backed forces advancing on partner forces in a strategically-prized swathe of land along the Iraqi border.

Outside observers said that Sunday's strike underscored a growing willingness on the part of Assad's forces to confront the U.S.-led coalition as they jostle to roll back Islamic State militants from eastern Syria.

That effort has been bolstered by the freeing up of thousands of Shiite militias that had fought in a campaign across the border to capture the city of Mosul from Islamic State militants.

"The wild card here is the logic of an Assad regime which has decided that it no longer wants to be constrained to a western Syria-based statelet," said Nicholas A. Heras, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security.

That shift has been driven by an assessment that the Trump's administration could use the territory its forces capture as a bargaining chip with which to push Assad into a political transition or Syria into a decentralized political system, Heras added.

In Moscow, officials argued that Sunday's shoot-down was intended as a message aimed squarely at them.

Franz Klintsevich, deputy head of the defense and security committee of the Russian upper house of parliament, called the incident "an aggression and a provocation" directed at Russia.

"It looks like Donald Trumps' United States is a source of a brand-new danger both in the Middle East and the world at large," Klintsevich wrote on his Facebook page.

Another member of the upper house, Alexei Pushkov, tweeted that the incident was "a new act of war" against the Syrian government.

The upper house, the Federation Council, is a largely toothless body that essentially carries out Putin's policies with little opposition.

The reaction of Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was more muted. Russia's top diplomat said that the United States should show respect Syria's territorial integrity and that any actions on the ground "should be coordinated with Damascus."

"We call on the United States and all others who have their forces or their advisers 'on the ground' to ensure coordination in our work," the official Russian Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying at a meeting with the foreign ministers of Brazil, India and China in Beijing.

Putin last week said that Syria has proven to be a useful testing ground for advanced Russian weapons systems.

"It has done enormous good for our defense industry," Putin told Russians in his annual televised call-in show. "I can say that the experience our armed forces have gained under combat conditions, especially with the use of cutting-edge weapons, is invaluable."