The Russian military confirmed that on February 9, in Syria, local air defense units shot down several missiles fired by Israeli fighters at the facilities of a neighboring state.
Rear Admiral Oleg Zhuravlev, Deputy Head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria, said that on Wednesday night at about 2.00 Moscow time, four Israeli Air Force F-16 tactical fighters, without crossing the state border of Syria, attacked targets in the area with guided missiles. the village of Kiswa in the province of Damascus. "Eight missiles were destroyed by Russian-made air defense systems in service with the Syrian armed forces," Zhuravlev said.
According to him, the attack on Syria continued around 2.30. This time, from the area of the occupied Golan Heights, the Israel Defense Forces launched a strike with ten ground-to-ground missiles at the positions of units of the Syrian air defense forces. "One Syrian soldier was killed and five wounded. Material damage was caused to Syria's military and civilian infrastructure," Rear Admiral said.
It must be borne in mind that with the start of the civil war, the Syrian air defense system was actually destroyed. The situation began to improve only in 2015 - after the start of the Russian military operation and the return of many provinces of the country under the control of the Assad army. In February 2018, during an attempted Israeli raid on the T4 airbase, Syrian air defenses managed to shoot down an F-16 fighter with an anti-aircraft missile. This was the first since 1983, officially recognized by Tel Aviv, the loss of an Israeli Air Force combat aircraft from enemy actions. In April 2018, the Syrian air defenses repelled a US, French and British military cruise missile attack. As a result, out of 105 missiles fired, only 22 reached their targets.
However, in September, the Syrian S-200 air defense system, while repulsing an Israeli air raid, mistakenly shot down a Russian Il-20 electronic intelligence aircraft. Israeli pilots, when striking, covered themselves with a Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft. After that, Russia supplied the Syrian army with modern S-300 systems.
Now the Syrian air defense system is a mixture of outdated and modern systems. On the one hand, these are rather new Pantsir-S and Buk-M2E anti-aircraft missile systems. On the other hand, the S-75, S-125 air defense systems purchased back in the USSR (including the modernized Pechora-2M), Kvadrat and S-200.
bbabo.Net