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Izrel i Rusija iz intervjua sa Amirom Eshelom, komandantom izraelskog RV.
Citat:Eshel was then asked about how Israel has dealt with Russia's arrival in Syria and its military operations in the region since.
“We realized that a new and very significant player had entered the arena... A potential for friction, one that could cause dangerous results, had been created. Certainly we have nothing against them, but we have interests and they have interests, and they converge in the Syrian airspace. How do you reduce the possibility of unintended mutual harm? The strategic consequences could be serious. To date, it [the mechanism that was worked out] has stood the test well.”
In November 2015, Turkish planes downed a Russian warplane on the Syria-Turkey border, sparking a serious crisis between Moscow and Istanbul. Israel sought to prevent, almost at any price, a similar clash with the Russians.
“There’s one thing you have to understand: In the air, things can happen within a second, with all due respect to a directive by Putin or by the prime minister,” Eshel explains. “In the end, the question is: How do we foster a situation in which a lieutenant here, or his counterpart on the Russian side, doesn’t make that mistake. The lieutenant has to decide here and now, and it’s possible that within a second he will have made a mistake, and we’ve gone and entangled Israel. That’s something we cannot allow ourselves. In the technical sense, we reduce the possibility that this will happen. We know how to communicate. We do not coordinate our activity with the Russians in advance. It’s not that we tell them what we are going to do [in Syria].”
How does it work, if you don’t coordinate with them?
“There’s something technical here, and there are leaders’ directives, and trust. We don’t intend to harm the Russians, and we do everything to avoid harming them. They understand why we are taking action. They don’t agree or give us authorization, but I think they understand what Israel is doing. It is fighting terrorism, preventing the delivery of means of combat.”
Agreement isn’t part of the story?
“It’s not a matter of agreement. Sovereign states need to respect other states, and in this case we are both involved with the same geographical slot. We have no beef with the Russians. We do have a beef with deliveries of arms that endanger our security.”
t’s been almost two years. Have Russian planes or defense systems locked on to Israeli planes? Were there situations of near-confrontation?
“Locking on is not a situation of almost being hit. There have been no situations of near-clash, because we are conducting ourselves correctly. When I look now at the scope of Russian activity during two years, at how many times they have violated Israeli sovereignty, my point of departure is that the majority were by mistake, it’s nothing. There were situations in which we contacted them in real time and said that there had been a mistake [of the Russians entering Israeli airspace], and they immediately responded and corrected. That’s alright. We have not seen provocations.”
Still, when a pilotless plane – apparently Russian – appears suddenly in Israel’s skies, what happens?
“Everything tenses up, certainly. We do what needs to be done. It’s all at top speed, but we behave responsibly. I think the Russians know that we are not Turkey.”
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/13837/head-of.....-interview
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