Russia shot down 17 rebel UAVs
According to Southfront, Russian air defense forces in Syria announced that they had shot down 17 rebel UAVs of various types, including those carrying weapons.
The source quoted a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense as saying that the number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) shot down above was the achievement of the Russian air defense force deployed in Syria within 3 months.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the Moscow Conference on Global Security on April 4 that among the downed UAVs, one had a range of up to 100km. "It is impossible for the rebels to create such UAVs without outside support," Sergei Shoigu stressed.
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| Pantsir-S1 system. |
Speaking about the weapon that carried out this series of downed weapons, Mr. Sergei Shoigu said that most of the targets were shot down by strikes from the Pantsir-S1 system deployed at Hmeymim.
Along with that, military sources revealed that since the beginning of 2017 alone, Russia's Pantsir-S1 air defense systems in Syria have repeatedly fired to destroy 13 air targets that Russia felt were dangerous, all with missiles.
Two of these, presumably balloon-like targets, were shot down near the maximum range of their missiles, within a few days of each other in June this year, in the airspace of two Russian military bases in Syria, the Tartus naval base and the permanent Hmeymim air base.
The Russian military suspects that these spheres may have been equipped with devices to monitor the interior and structures of Russian bases. Four of the targets destroyed by the Pantsir-S1 were artillery shells and rockets fired in the area of the Hmeymim and Masyaf bases in Hama province.
The remaining targets destroyed were seven drones, including a Turkish-made Bayraktar UAV shot down near the Tartus base in late 2017, and an unidentified small drone shot down in the Masyaf area around the same time.
Israel had four Heron reconnaissance UAVs shot down near Tartus and Masyaf bases in April, May and July 2017 and an unidentified UAV was shot down on September 22, when Israeli fighter jets attacked Damascus International Airport.
In addition, an American RQ-21A Blackjack UAV was shot down near Tartus on May 27.
The fact that the Pansir-S1 shot down all suspicious targets in Syrian airspace shows that the Russian air defense force is extremely vigilant, ready to shoot down all targets that they see as dangerous and illegally present in Syrian airspace.
