Moscow on Wednesday said ‘Israel’ had violated Syria’s sovereignty with airstrikes the day before.
“We are very concerned by the attacks and how they were made. This is a gross violation of the sovereignty of Syria,” the Russian ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.
Syria said via state media that its air defenses shot down Israeli missiles near Damascus, while Israel said it was protecting itself from anti-aircraft fire.
Moscow’s defense ministry earlier said Israeli strikes had endangered two passenger planes.
“The provocative actions of the Israeli air force.. directly threatened two airliners,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
He said the attack came from over Lebanese territory and came as “two airliners, not from Russia, were preparing to land at the airports of Beirut and Damascus”.
He said restrictions were imposed on the use of Syrian government forces’ air defense systems “to prevent a tragedy”. One of the planes was redirected to a Russian airbase within Syria.
The Russian defense ministry said three Syrian military personnel were injured in a strike that saw Israeli warplanes drop 16 bombs.
Of these, 14 were destroyed by Syrian defense systems, according to the ministry.
Source: AFP
