WASHINGTON — For the second time in less than 24 hours, Russian fighter jets maneuvered dangerously close to US MQ-9 Reaper drones over Syria on Thursday in what Pentagon officials described as the latest cases of deliberate harassment by the Kremlin’s forces there.
In an apparently separate incident on Thursday, the French military said a Russian Su-35 engaged in an "unprofessional interaction" with two Rafale fighter jets over the Iraq-Syria border area, forcing the French pilots to maneuver in order to avoid risk of an accident.
"The repeated violations, [by] Russian air forces, of agreed-upon standards and practices is now becoming a significant safety concern in the region," the US military's top commander in the Middle East, Army Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla, said in a statement on Thursday.
The US Air Force released separate videos of the close encounters captured by the MQ-9s' cameras in which Russian aircraft appear to drop flares within close range of the drones.
