Israel-Russia To Coordinate Air Ops Over Syria

Russia and Israel have agreed on mutual information sharing on air operations over Syria and are working on using the hotline established last week.

The Russian defense ministry confirmed that “mutual information-sharing on the actions of aircraft has been established ”to avoid clashes in the skies of Syria “between the Russian aviation command center at the Hmeimim air base and a command post of the Israeli air force,” Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency adding that the two sides were holding practice sessions on the new line.

The Russian and Israeli air force headquarters near Latakia in Syria and Tel Aviv were putting into effect the agreement reached between Vladimir Putin and Binyamin Netanyahu in Moscow on Sept. 22, which was worked out in detail on Oct. 6 by Russian Dept. Chief of Staff Gen. Nikolay Bogdanovsky and his Israeli counterpart Gen. Yair Golan, Debkafile reported Monday.

The Turkish fighters shot down a Russian Orlan 10 UAV that intruded 3 Km into their airspace last week. The Turks complained they had shot down the drone after repeated warnings to the Russian pilots. Sine the drone has no pilots, the complaint must have been relayed to the Russian airbase in Syria. But in the absence of coordination, there was no answer. This lack of communication might have forced Russia to have a hotline to avoid such incidents in the future.

According to Debkafile, as soon as Russia embarked on its large-scale military buildup in Syria. Moscow and Jerusalem made haste to set up a hot line to avert disastrous collisions over Syria.

It can be assumed that the Russian end of the hot line with Israel at the Al-Hmeineem air base near Latakia, will be manned by Arab-speaking flight controllers.

And at the Tel Aviv end, along with Israeli officers, there will also be a presence of air controllers from western allies, including the US Air Force, who will use the facility to coordinate their flights with the Russian command. The news daily reported.

The US-Israeli Blue Flag exercise provides an excellent opportunity for testing the Israeli-Russian hot line in combat conditions. Far from being a fantastic scenario, it offers a dose of reality on the current military conditions prevailing in the region.