Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Oct. 19 that a drone shot down by the Turkish air force on Oct. 16 was made in Russia, the online newspaper Vzglyad reports. “The downed drone is Russian-made,” Davutoglu told the A Haber television channel.
“But Russia has told us that it doesn’t belong to them. It may belong to the al-Assad regime, Syrian Kurds or other forces.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said as early as Oct. 16 that the Russian air force had suffered no losses.
Denis Fedutinov, a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) expert and the chief editor of the Russian website UAV.ru, does not rule out that the downed aircraft did belong to the Syrian army or Kurdish guerrillas.
“Russia has already delivered unmanned systems to Syria,” he told Vzglyad.
“In particular, it supplied Pchela drone systems, a rather old development dating back to the Soviet era. However, according to some reports, short-range Eleron-3 drones have also been supplied in recent years.
“Essentially, these two facts suggest that Moscow has experience of working with Damascus in the supply of such equipment. In principle, we cannot rule out the delivery of any other systems, too.”
He admitted that he still could not recognize the aircraft in the photograph released by the Turkish authorities.
“My colleagues and I carefully looked at the pictures. We have not seen such a system at any public events. I think it is an undisclosed development,” he said.
Source: Russia Beyond the Headlines