Missile systems shipped to Syria protect Russian air force group

The United States announced a decision last week to further deepen its military role in Syria, including intensifying its air campaign and deploying a small number of U.S. special operations forces on the ground for the first time.

The joint air defense system in Syria also includes modernized Osa, S-125 Pechora-2M, S-200, and other systems, he said.

RT is quoting Russian Air Force commander Viktor Bondarev as saying that the Sukhoi jet was on a combat mission in Northern Syria “in very dense cloud conditions”.

Let’s imagine a military plane is hijacked and taken to a neighbouring country and air strikes are aimed at us.

“We have calculated all possible threats”, he said. “We should be prepared for this”.

Bondarev did not specify the type of missiles Russian Federation provided.

Russia’s aerospace forces launched surgical strikes against terrorist targets in Syria on September 30 at the request of President Bashar Assad.

In the past few weeks, Western nations and Russian Federation have been engaged in intense diplomatic talks, aiming to bring about a political settlement in Syria, that has been torn by a civil war since 2011 that has killed 250,000 people and forced millions to flee. But that claim is widely disputed by the US and others who say the Russians have too often bombed Syrian opposition fighters who have no connection with, or allegiance to, the Islamic State militants. Meanwhile, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Moscow would host a round of talks between Syrian officials and opposition leaders next week.