What Joint Russian-Syrian Air Patrols Might Mean For Foreign Air Forces Over Syria

In late January, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that Russian and Syrian warplanes had conducted joint patrols along the Golan Heights and the Euphrates River. 

“The mission route included the Golan Heights, the southern border of Syria, the Euphrates River and northern Syria,” the statement said. “The Russian pilots took off from Khmeimim Air Base, while the Syrians took off from the Sayqal and Al-Dumayur bases near Damascus.”

It also disclosed that Russian Su-34 Fullback, Su-35 Flanker, and A-50 early warning and control aircraft were accompanied by Syrian MiG-23 Floggers and MiG-29 Fulcrums.

“During the patrol mission, the Syrian pilots controlled airspace and provided fighter cover, while Russian crews practiced attacks on ground targets,” read the statement. 

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“The two countries’ pilots developed skills for cooperation in various situations,” it added. “This kind of joint missions will now take place on a regular basis.” 

What could this, if anything, potentially mean for foreign air forces that routinely carry out operations in Syrian airspace? What is Russia trying to demonstrate or achieve? 

The mission, which Russia carried out against the backdrop of its enormous troop build-up on Ukraine’s borders, could be another way of showcasing the Russian military’s long reach. Russia has plans to retain a military presence in Syria for decades to come, having leased air and naval bases there from Damascus for at least a half-century. 

Less than two weeks before the joint patrols with the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF), a Russian commander reiterated that Tu-22M3 ‘Backfire’ bombers based in Russia’s Khmeimim airbase in western Syria can strike any target in the Mediterranean Sea. The Tu-22M3s first landed in Russia’s Syrian airbase on May 25 after Russia extended a runway there to accommodate them. 

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Moscow sees its consolidated military presence in Syria as a potential “thorn in NATO’s southern flank”. 

Nevertheless, foreign air forces continue to operate over Syrian airspace for various reasons, and there is not much the SyAAF can do by itself to hinder them since it consists of antiquated aircraft with heavily worn airframes. Footage of SyAAF MiG-29 Fulcrums, the most advanced jets in that air force, from 2020 showed just how visibly worn they have become after over a decade of war. 

Aside from Russia, the three main foreign air forces that routinely operate in Syrian airspace are Israel, Turkey, and the United States. All three countries have shot down SyAAF jets in the past, and, of course, Turkey even shot down a Russian Su-24 on Nov. 24, 2015, triggering a tense months-long crisis with Moscow.

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The inclusion of the SyAAF in joint patrols could well be Moscow’s way of conveying that it seeks to help Damascus reclaim control over its sovereign airspace. 

Here’s what that could or could not mean for the three primary foreign air forces operating over Syria today:

Israel

Following the Jan. 24 joint patrol, Israel has reportedly held talks with Russian army officers. It was apparently concerned about its frontier on the Golan Heights being along the patrol route, especially since the Russian defense ministry claimed such patrols would become a regular occurrence. According to the Israeli news site Ynet, Israel is also concerned that the Russian-led patrol could limit its ability to carry out airstrikes in the country. 

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That report speculates that one reason for the patrol may have been the Russians estimating “that a break in winter weather would prompt an Israeli attack in Syria and saw this as an opportunity to demonstratively thwart such a move.” 

Another similar reason Russia may have chosen to patrol along the Golan could have been to convey its annoyance with Israel’s two airstrikes against Syria’s western port of Latakia in December and warn Israel against strikes in particular areas of the country. Israel, which has carried out an air campaign against Iran-linked targets in Syria for about a decade now, has mostly avoided bombing the city of Latakia, given the military presence Russia has maintained there since intervening in the Syrian conflict in 2015. Aside from a 2018 strike in the city, which resulted in heightened tensions with Russia, Israel carried out raids against the port city in 2014 and 2013, before the Russian intervention. 

Interestingly, last July, Rear Admiral Vadim Kulit, the deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties, said that Syria’s Russian-built Pantsir and Buk-M2 air defense systems intercepted Israeli standoff missiles on two separate occasions that month. That could have been Russia’s way of warning Israel to limit its air campaign or conveying that it is improving Syria’s ability to defend its airspace with Russian-built weaponry.

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From the moment Russia intervened in Syria in 2015, Israel rushed to establish a communications mechanism with Moscow to avoid incidents between their two militaries. For the most part, in the intervening seven years, Russia has largely looked the other way as Israel continued to conduct hundreds of airstrikes across the country. 

In one low point, during a rare airstrike in Latakia in September 2018, a Syrian S-200 missile was fired at incoming Israeli warplanes only to hit a Russian transport killing 15 Russian military personnel. Moscow claimed that the Israeli jets had purposely used the Russian plane as cover for its strike. In response, it fast-tracked the delivery of far more advanced S-300s to Syria to improve that country’s antiquated and dilapidated air defenses. However, since then, those “Syrian” S-300s have by all accounts remained under the control of Russian military personnel, likely because Moscow doesn’t want Syria firing them at Israeli jets and risk having them swiftly destroyed – which would undermine Russia’s claim that its systems are better than Western equivalents. 

Israel has launched strikes against targets in Syria since the Jan. 24 joint Russian-Syrian patrol. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Israel’s “continuing strikes against targets inside Syria cause deep concern.” 

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“They are a crude violation of Syria’s sovereignty and may trigger a sharp escalation of tensions,” she added. “Also, such actions pose serious risks to international passenger flights.” 

“Once again, we are insistently calling upon the Israeli side to refrain from such use of force,” she affirmed. 

It remains to be seen if Russia intends to do anything else aside from verbal denunciations and symbolic patrols with the SyAAF to restrict the Israeli Air Force’s freedom of action over Israel or under what circumstances it would risk clashing with Israel. 

Turkey

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The SyAAF never posed a serious threat to the Turkish Air Force. Early in the Syrian conflict, Turkish F-16s, which are equipped with long-range AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, patrolled the Syrian border and, in 2014, even shot down a SyAAF MiG-23 ‘Flogger’. That all changed when Russia intervened in 2015 and began bombing near the Turkish border, often violating Turkish airspace as it did so. Then, on Nov. 24, 2015, Turkish F-16s infamously shot down a Russian Su-24 ‘Fencer’ bomber. 

Russia responded by closing Syrian airspace off to Turkey and deploying long-range S-400 air defense systems to the country (it had previously only deployed short- to medium-range air defenses). For months, Turkey avoided penetrating Syrian airspace, likely fearful that Russia would seize the chance to avenge the Su-24 incident by shooting down a Turkish F-16. 

Tensions thawed by the summer of 2016 after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed regret over the incident. Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first world leader to voice support for Erdogan’s government after the failed July 15, 2016, coup attempt in Turkey. 

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The following month Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield in northwest Syria, clearing a large swath of border territory from the Islamic State (ISIS). The operation was only possible with Russian consent. 

For more than two weeks in October-November 2016, as its troops and militia proxies besieged ISIS in the city of al-Bab, Turkey did not carry out any airstrikes after Syria threatened its aircraft with its Russian-built air defenses. However, Turkey resumed strikes after consultations with Russia, and Syria did nothing, underscoring which country was really in control of its airspace. 

On Jan. 26, 2017, Russia announced it had carried out joint strikes against ISIS in Aleppo province with the Turkish Air Force. Russian Su-24M and Su-35S jets attacked the militants along with Turkish F-16s and F-4s at the latter stages of Operation Euphrates Shield. It seemed the two countries had come a long way since November 2015. 

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In January 2018, Turkey launched the perversely named Operation Olive Branch, its invasion of the northwestern Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin. That operation once again demonstrated how Turkey depended on Russia’s greenlight to use Syrian airspace and could brush aside Syrian objections. 

At the beginning of the operation, Syria threatened to shoot down Turkish jets, claiming its “air defenses have restored their full force.” However, Damascus did nothing, and Turkish jets operated unimpeded over Afrin against Kurdish YPG fighters. Shortly after Turkish tanks rolled into Afrin city and Turkish-backed Syrian militants looted civilian homes and businesses in broad daylight, Russia closed Afrin’s airspace from March 18-24, enabling YPG fighters in the enclave to withdraw to the nearby Tel Rifaat region. 

On Feb. 27, 2020, a lethal airstrike struck a Turkish military convoy in Balyun in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. At least 34 Turkish soldiers, the single largest loss of Turkish military personnel in a single incident since the 1974 campaign in Cyprus, were killed. Turkey retaliated by launching Operation Spring Shield and used drones and fighter jets to devastate Syrian ground forces, destroying dozens of armored vehicles. Turkey also shot down two SyAAF Su-24 and a single L-39.

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Russia did nothing to deter Turkey’s retaliation, and Turkey also did not target Russian forces. However, many in the Turkish military, as this exclusive investigation by Middle East Eye outlines, are absolutely convinced that the perpetrator of that targeted strike was the Russian Air Force and not the SyAAF, which lacks the capability for such precision strikes and cannot carry “bunker-busting” penetration bombs. 

If that account is accurate, Russia killed 34 Turkish troops and allowed Turkey to save face by retaliating against a much weaker and less sophisticated Syrian military and air force. 

These incidents strongly suggest that the Russia’s air force can likely deter or hinder Turkish Air Force operations over Syria with or without joint patrols with the SyAAF if it so chooses. 

The United States

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The first United States airstrikes against the Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria were in September 2014, as part of its ongoing Inherent Resolve operation against that group. The first jets bombing ISIS in Syria notably carried AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missiles to knock out any Syrian air defenses that attempted to target them. None did. 

The U.S. air campaign over Syria continues to the present. It has effectively warded off attacks from the SyAAF. In June 2016, when two SyAAF Su-24 bombers attempted to bomb the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah, they were effectively deterred by U.S. Air Force (USAF) F-22 Raptor stealth fighters. 

After a Su-22 targeted U.S.-allied Kurdish-led forces in Tabqa in June 2017, a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet shot it down. 

U.S. warplanes could effectively deter or, if necessary, defeat their SyAAF opponent. That wasn’t the case with Russia, which challenged the U.S. aerial presence over Syria leading to dangerous incidents over the Middle Euphrates Valley. Despite opening a communications channel to deconflict their separate campaigns in Syria, there were still tense incidents that could have proven fatal. 

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Several close and dangerous close-quarters encounters between U.S. and Russian aircraft raised fears of a midair collision beginning in 2016. In the autumn of that year, a Russian Su-35 Flanker fighter came within a few hundred feet of a U.S. radar plane before it, according to the Wall Street Journal, flew “north and east across the American plane’s nose, churning up a wave of turbulent air in its path and briefly disrupting its sensitive electronics.” 

After the June 2017 Su-22 shootdown, Russia warned the U.S. that any of it could target any of its planes flying west of the Euphrates River, the mutually agreed-upon deconfliction line. 

Russian warplanes performed several more dangerous maneuvers near U.S. aircraft in the following months. 

In November of that year, two USAF A-10 Warthog attack planes almost collided with a Russian Su-24 when it came within 300 feet of the USAF planes on the American side of the Euphrates line. Over the next two days, a Russian Su-30 “flew 1,000 feet directly below A-10s,” and a few days after that, USAF F-22s “encountered an armed Russian Su-24 Fencer that had crossed into the airspace east of the Euphrates, and made three passes directly over allied ground forces for 20 minutes.”

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The following month, USAF F-22s intercepted Russian Su-25s flying over the Euphrates line and fired warning flares in an aerial encounter that lasted “several minutes”. 

One of the Su-25s “flew close enough to an F-22A that it had to aggressively maneuver to avoid a midair collision,” according to the Air Forces Central Command spokesperson at the time. During the same incident, “a Russian Su-35 also flew across the river and was shadowed closely by one of the F-22As.” 

This series of incidents marked “the first time that Western and Russian pilots have routinely flown so close to one another in combat since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war in Sinai.” 

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Such incidents have been rarer since but could become common again, especially if Russian-U.S. ties deteriorate over Ukraine and Moscow tries to give the U.S. a difficult time in Syria. 

These past incidents undoubtedly demonstrate that the U.S. wouldn’t hesitate to shoot down a SyAAF jet threatening its troops or allied forces in northeast Syria. However, that might not apply if the SyAAF aircraft are flying joint missions with Russian jets, possibly as part of a Russian bid to help Syria gradually reassert control over its eastern airspace.

In that case, the U.S. might have to think twice to avoid the grave risk of clashes with Russia, which could lead to a major unwanted escalation. As Russian recalcitrance over Ukraine heightens dire risk of war in Eastern Europe, Moscow may be more willing to risk escalation in the skies over Syria.