[ad_1]
Major General Air Force General Amikam Norkin fulfilled his mission, but Moscow did not hesitate to declare that the problem of the Russian spy plane was settled last Monday.
The Israeli army reported professional and professional conversations with Russian Air Force officers to whom they presented the Israeli aircraft investigation findings with Syrian anti-aircraft fire during an attack. near Latakia, in northern Syria. But a Kremlin spokesman said Friday that although Russian President Vladimir Putin had been informed of Norkin's presentation, only Defense Ministry experts could decide whether the information provided by Israel was sufficient.
The final decision will be made by Putin, not by the professionals. But Russia has spoken with several voices since the incident.
>> Israel fears that Putin will close in Syria ■ Russia publishes details about the destruction of a plane in Syria
The Ministry of Defense, which issued a statement threatening Israel the day after the incident, takes a hard line. Putin himself spoke softly, almost forgive, from a series of tragic mistakes. And Russian officers in contact with Israeli colleagues mainly dealt with professional problems – what caused the incident and what should be repaired to prevent it from happening again.
The investigation, of which Norkin first presented the findings in a broad forum and then privately to his Russian counterpart, found no flaw in the conduct of the air force. Israel, he concluded, acted in self-defense to prevent the smuggling of precision weapons equipment from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Russia was warned in time, in accordance with previous agreements. The planes were already attacking Israel when the Russian plane was hit. The Syrian air defense batteries fired more than 20 missiles in all directions, without taking the necessary precautions to ensure that no Russian aircraft was in the vicinity.
But despite the unusual openness of Israel and the speed with which it relayed its information, the Israeli defense officials are under no illusions. The incident, which killed 15 Russian soldiers, creates some embarrassment at home for the Russian government. And the Russians were already unhappy with the scale and intensity of Israeli air strikes in Syria.
Thus, now that Putin has a new lever to put pressure on Israel, it is difficult to see him not using it simply because of his friendship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Despite close relations between the two leaders, Russia will certainly try to exploit this incident to the fullest.
New bilateral agreements have apparently not yet been finalized and will probably not be published. But at least in the short term, Russia will likely attempt to impose restrictions on Israel's freedom of action, either by distancing Israeli planes from Russian bases in northern Syria, or by requiring longer notice for each strike.
Nevertheless, the Israeli-Russian deconfliction mechanism has resumed its activities. On Friday morning, Israeli and Russian planes approached each other in unusual ways, but the problem was immediately solved through the air force's telephone line to the Russian base near Latakia.
A third country was notably absent from Russian-Israeli tensions caused by the plane shot down – the United States. Until a few years ago, Washington was involved in almost every major development of the Middle East. A good example is UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The United States and France were heavily involved in drafting it, but Russia, which also a permanent seat on the Security Council was hardly involved.
Today, the situation is reversed. Putin is the owner in Syria; US President Donald Trump is at best a secondary player.
This trend began with the Obama administration's inaction in Syria, but it intensified under Trump. The current administration is seeking to block Iran and punish the Palestinian Authority, but it is not facing Russia in Syria. Trump reluctantly accepted the wish of his advisers to let a small US force in Syria hinder Iran's efforts to create an adjoining belt of influence in eastern Syria, near the Jordanian and Iraqi borders. .
[ad_2]Source link
