Sao Paulo
Vladimir Putin's Russia discreetly began air patrols to block attacks by Israeli forces on targets linked to Iran and the Damascus dictatorship in Syria, which have been bombed regularly since the start of the IsraelHamas war.
The maneuver carries a number of escalation risks and, above all, shows a subtle message from Putin to Washington that he does not want to leave his allies in the Middle East without support.
It all started last week when Israeli media reported that at least one Russian Mi8 transport helicopter had been seen on the border of the socalled Bravo Line, the eastern border of the territory that separates Syria from the Golan Heights and has been captured by Israel and the Arabs Country at war in 1967.
Between it and the Alpha Line, on the side occupied by the Israelis, lies a buffer zone that has been administered by the United Nations since the ceasefire after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. None of the rivals can enter this area.
On Thursday (18), a day after the helicopter flyover, Russia opened up in a statement from the Tass agency. There have been three attacks by rival groups of dictator Bashar alAssad in areas under his jurisdiction as part of a program to deescalate the civil war that has ravaged Syria since 2011.
In addition, the American MQ1C Gray Eagle drone, which the Russians say is capable of surveillance and attack missions, violated Syrian airspace near its base in AlTanf. “To monitor the situation, units of the Russian Aerospace Forces organized patrols along the Bravo Line,” Admiral Vadim Kulit said.
He is deputy head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation between Warring Parties in Syria. Despite its name, Moscow supports Assad, whom it saved from toppling when it intervened in the civil war in 2015. Since then, it has expanded its already operating port in Tartus and gained a large air base in Hmeimin.
But Line Bravo lies in the main path of Israeli warplanes and drones heading to targets in Syria, as they have done several times during the war. The bombings mentioned occurred near Aleppo in the far north of the country and were allegedly carried out by jihadist groups. The American drone flight mentioned above took place more than 1,500 km east of Linha Bravo.
So what the Russians want is to stop Israelis and, indirectly, Americans from operating in Syria. According to a person working in the defense sector in Moscow, SheetThe Kremlin requests anonymity and is trying to demarcate spaces.
The US has already attacked bases of Iranaligned groups that fired rockets at their bases in the Arab country. On Saturday, Israel was accused by Tehran of killing at least five members of its military elite, the Revolutionary Guard, in an airstrike in a Damascus neighborhood. The scenario is so confusing that even Iran has attacked rival bases in Syria, albeit in territory outside the control of the Russianbacked dictatorship.
Since the beginning of the IsraelHamas war, after the Palestinian terror group launched a major attack against the Jewish state on October 7, Putin has positioned himself on the side of what Iran calls the Axis of Resistance against the Israelis and their biggest allies, the American.
The Tehran group includes Syria, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as a variety of regional groups operating in Syria and Iraq.
The Russian president even made veiled threats to the US and its aircraft carriers deployed to the region to support Israel, criticized the deployment and launched patrols with warplanes armed with hypersonic missiles that would hypothetically have a range to attack Washington's ships from the sea meet. Black .
It was nothing more than rhetoric amid the acute crisis between the Kremlin and the West over the Ukraine war, but the movement in Syria, even if silent, carries greater risks.
The skies over the Arab country are already clogged with aircraft from rival powers. This Tuesday (23), the Syrians said they shot down a drone coming from Jordan and complained about the violation of their airspace. Last July, a Russian fighter jet intentionally damaged an American drone aircraft.
Shortly before, the US had made an unusual public announcement that it would send stateoftheart F22 fighter jets to the region in an attempt to curb what it saw as increasing Russian air activity. Military personnel from both countries have already encountered strange feelings on the streets of the Arab country.
One of the most serious incidents for Moscow occurred in 2018, when a reconnaissance plane carrying 15 soldiers was shot down by Syrian defense forces, which in turn tried to target Israeli warplanes that had attacked Damascus.
Since then, Russians and Israelis have improved their communication to avoid accidents. With the war and Putin's break with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the gray area deepened.
In addition to the political statement, the Russian has his most important asset in the Middle East in Syria. An escalation, even if accidental, could expose the Kremlin to unwanted involvement from those focused on the fighting in the Ukrainian camps.