Russia blames Israel after Syria, its ally, killed 15 by downing one of its planes in a wild air battle

The Russian Ministry of Defense has blamed Israel for the downing of an Il-20 spy plane in the Mediterranean after its own ally, Syria, shot down the plane with anti-aircraft artillery.

The Russian plane went down during a massive air battle between Israeli jets and Syrian air defenses, which sprang to life during a missile attack that pounded an ammunition depot and an industrial compound.

Photo and videos of the event show bombs hitting the ground while air defense rockets streak skyward. No video from the incident has yet shown a successful interception.

Russia said its Il-20 went down about 35 kilometers from the Syrian coast at about 11 p.m. local time, during the heat of the battle.

Syria operates a number of Russian-made air defenses and has never demonstrated a significant ability to intercept incoming missiles. Though Syria claimed to have downed many of the missiles fired by the US in April 2017 and 2018 in response to chemical weapons use, they never provided any evidence.

Syria and Russia now blame the strikes on Monday on Israel, which rarely takes responsibility for airstrikes in the country.

Russian media said that four Israeli F-16s carried out the attack, and that it gave just one minute's warning to Russia, which maintains large military bases in the region.

"The Israeli pilots used the Russian plane as cover and set it up to be targeted by the Syrian air defense forces. As a consequence, the Il-20, which has radar cross-section much larger than the F-16, was shot down by an S-200 system missile," Russian media reported the Russian defense ministry as saying.

"As a result of the irresponsible actions of the Israeli military, 15 Russian service personnel perished. This absolutely does not correspond to the spirit of Russian-Israeli partnership," Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told Russian state media, Reuters noted.

"We reserve the right to take commensurate measures in response," Konashenkov said.

Russia had previously claimed that a French frigate operating in the area had fired missiles before the Il-20 went down, but France denied participating in the attack.

Russia has frequently boasted about its air defenses in Syria and their ability to repel attacks from even top-of-the-line US stealth jets.

Israeli F-16s are practiced in knocking over Syrian air defenses, but remain a generation behind US-made stealth jets in terms of radar-evading technology.

Alleged Israeli strikes in Syria previously have given Russian defense-populated sites a wide berth, but strikes on the Damascus International Airport on Sunday and the air battle on Monday have played out near to Russian forces.

Russia blames Israel after Syria, its ally, killed 15 by downing one of its planes in a wild air battle

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