Massive Drone Attack on Russia’s Syrian Base led by US Recon Plane: Russia

Russia has accused the United States of orchestrating a massive drone attack on its Hmeymim airbase in Syria by controlling the drones via a Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane that was flying over the Mediterranean for 8 hours during the course of the attack.

Giving details of the encounter that took place in January this year, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin said Russian counter-measures led to the destruction of the drones. "Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," he noted.

Fomin who was speaking at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security on Thursday said, “when the drones met with the electronic countermeasures of the Russian systems, they switched to a manual guidance mode. Manual guidance was carried out not by some villagers, but by the Poseidon-8, which has modern equipment. It undertook manual control.”

"When these 13 drones faced our electronic warfare screen, they moved away to some distance, received the corresponding orders and began to be operated out of space and receiving help in finding the so-called holes through which they started penetrating. Then they were destroyed," Fomin claimed.

The Russian Defense Ministry had earlier said that on January 6 militants in Syria first massively used drones in the attack on the Russian Hmeymim airbase and the Russian naval base in Tartus. The attack was successfully repelled: seven drones were downed, and control over six drones was gained through electronic warfare systems.

The Russian Defense Ministry had then stressed that the technology used by the militants could be received only from a technologically advanced country.