Russian Fighters Are Attempting to Draw American Jets Into Dogfights

• Russian forces flying within the skies over Syria have reportedly tried to attract their American counterparts into dogfights.
• To date, the incidents haven’t involved actual air-to-air combat.
• It appears the Russian pilots try to impress international incidents, likely in retaliation for U.S. military aid to Ukraine.

Russian pilots have engaged in increasingly dangerous and provocative behavior over Syria. That’s the charge from U.S. Central Command, which states that Russian fighter jets have tried to gall their American counterparts into a global incident. The activity is especially dangerous as bumbling Russian pilots have nearly triggered such incidents up to now through their very own mistakes.

“Unsafe and Unprofessional”

Two U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft fly over the U.S. Air Force Central Command area of responsibility during a mission supporting Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, March 30, 2021.

Based on Task & Purpose, Russian forces have “violated deconfliction protocols with Coalition forces almost 100 times in two months.” Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, head of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, stated that Russian aircrews have conducted “armed overflights of ground forces in Syria 26 times, flying inside 500 feet of U.S. aircraft, and within the last week, jamming U.S. aircraft electromagnetic systems.”

These incidents included an April 2 encounter by which a Russian Su-35 “Flanker-E” multi-role fighter conducted an “unsafe and unprofessional” intercept of a U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter, and an April 18 encounter when a Russian fighter “violated coalition airspace and got here inside 2,000 feet of a U.S. aircraft, a distance a fighter jet can cover in a matter of seconds.”

U.S. forces deployed to Syria within the late 2010s to steer a coalition that opposed the Islamic State. This put them in proximity to Russian forces propping up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. While each countries are theoretically on the identical side, the Coalition of Western countries isn’t friendly to the al-Assad regime, and Russian forces consider the Coalition presence an intrusion into Moscow’s sphere of influence. In 2018, a battle between U.S. forces, the Russian mercenary group Wagner, and Russian-backed Syrian forces killed as much as 300 Syrians and mercenaries in comparison with zero U.S. losses.

Anger Over U.S. Support for Ukraine

A Ukrainian soldier shoulders a U.S.-supplied Stinger surface-to-air missile launcher, Donetsk, December 2022. Missiles just like the Stinger keep Russian fighter jets from operating at low altitudes and supporting troop movements on the bottom, resulting in greater casualties.

One other think about the uptick of Russian aggression is U.S. support for Ukraine. Russian forces invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, expecting a fast victory. As a substitute, Ukrainian tenacity, and a big injection of U.S. and other Western arms and ammunition, has stalled and in some cases reversed the Russian advance. Russia has lost at the least 72 aircraft over the course of the war, many to U.S.-supplied weapons, including at the least one Su-35 fighter, the most recent jet currently in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces.

Russia’s frustration is that it knows exactly where and the way U.S. and NATO military aid for Ukraine enters the country, but is unable to do anything about it. It could strike Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport in Poland—where aid from the continental United States is flown before being trucked over land into Ukraine—but directly engaging NATO forces is asking for a war. Russia has enough problems beating one country, and an attack on any one in all the 31 member states of NATO is taken into account an attack on all.

Aerial Incompetence

This image, taken by an MQ-9 Reaper of its propeller assembly, shows a bent propeller after a Russian jet flew too near it. The Reaper was later intentionally flown into the Black Sea. Ineptitude like this could lead on to lack of life in the long run.

The recent Russian activity is all of the more dangerous because Moscow’s air forces have repeatedly demonstrated not only provocative but in addition incompetent behavior. On September 29, 2022, a Su-27 Flanker fighter nearly shot down a Royal Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint intelligence-gathering aircraft. The pilot, already locked onto the jet in violation of norms, attempted to launch a missile after he misheard his own ground controllers, pondering they’d cleared him to open fire. The missile failed to fireplace, stopping a significant intentional incident.

That wasn’t the one incident mixing aggression with bumbling. In mid-March 2023, a Russian fighter performing an in depth pass near a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper by accident clipped the drone’s propeller. The drone’s human controllers, realizing a landing can be dangerous, elected to send it crashing into the Black Sea. The pilots were later awarded medals to permit Moscow to avoid wasting face.

Russian anger at NATO support for Ukraine manifests itself as aerial bullying, nevertheless it’s a tool Moscow continuously reaches for, and it’s becoming hard to inform when Russia really feels threatened. Russia is buzzing U.S. forces with jet fighters, nevertheless it’s been doing that for nearly a decade, buzzing the guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook in 2014. Russian forces have also demonstrated considerable unprofessionalism and ineptitude, and at this point if one in all its fighter jets does attack U.S. forces, it may not be immediately apparent whether or not it was accidental or on purpose.

The Takeaway

It’s hard to know what to make of the dramatic increase within the variety of close incidents with Russian forces. On one hand, Russian forces won’t deliberately engage NATO forces, that are more skilled, higher trained, and more technologically advanced. Alternatively, Russian forces have nearly done so by accident, and Moscow isn’t letting up despite the risks involved. U.S. forces have kept a cool head and never taken the bait—but that might not be enough.