Comment and Opinion
Haaretz: Putin Absolves Israel Over Syria Strike, but Crisis With Moscow Reaches All the Way to Tehran, by Amos Harel
“You always have to remember the first lesson in military history: Don’t mess with the Russians,” a senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces said on Monday – without realizing how prophetic his words were.
The incident in the Syrian skies on Monday night has now put Israel in an extremely difficult position with the Russians, and is liable to negatively influence the strategic freedom of action its air force had enjoyed on the northern front until now.
This is true even as Russian President Vladimir Putin absolved Israel of downing the aircraft, saying the incident was a result of a “tragic chain of circumstances.”
Israeli fighter jets attacked Iranian-related targets in Syria. Syrian aerial defenses tried to thwart the Israeli attack and accidentally hit a Russian Air Force plane with a Russian-made missile.
Read the full article in Haaretz here.