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Who downed the Russian Il-20 over Syria?
Summary
A retrospective on the loss of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft and the Russia–Turkey Idlib deal announced days earlier in the same Syrian theatre.
Who was responsible when a Russian reconnaissance plane vanished over the Mediterranean, and what did the answer mean for the war in Syria? By 19 September 2018, two days after the aircraft disappeared, the outlines of the dispute had become clear.
What was reported
On 17 September 2018 a Russian Air Force Ilyushin Il-20 with 14 servicemen on board disappeared from radar during a missile attack on Syria's Latakia Governorate. A U.S. official said the Syrian Army had inadvertently shot it down while trying to intercept missiles. Russia, for its part, said it had detected a missile launch from a French FREMM multipurpose frigate.
By 18 September it was reported that the aircraft had been shot down. Russia accused Israel of not giving enough warning before launching its attacks, which, in Moscow's account, led Syria to fire on the plane.
The Idlib backdrop
The same day, 17 September, Russia and Turkey announced a demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib Governorate and ruled out military operations there. As the background to these events describes it, the Israeli strikes came a few hours after that agreement, which postponed an imminent offensive by Syria's forces and its allies.
Competing accounts
The accounts differed on who bore blame, though they agreed on the mechanism: Syrian air defences, responding to a missile attack, hit the Russian plane. Russia blamed Israel and accused the Israeli air force of hiding behind the Russian aircraft, putting it in the line of fire. The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged striking a Syrian weapons facility and expressed sorrow over the loss of life caused by Syrian fire. The background puts the death toll at 15, while contemporary reports spoke of 14 people on board.
Why it mattered
The episode showed how crowded and dangerous the Syrian airspace was, with Russian, Israeli, Syrian and Western forces operating close together. It also unfolded on the same day as a diplomatic step that had just shelved a major offensive in Idlib, so one Russian initiative was de-escalating in the north while a military loss and a public dispute with Israel emerged on the coast.
