Russian jets in Syria's skies?
Several days later, on September 2,
photos appeared on social networks allegedly showing Russian fighter jets and an UAV flying over western Idlib. The authors noted that the photos were posted by an account associated with Jabhaat al Nusra (Al Qaeda's Syrian "franchise", grey circles on the situation map). The author did not specify what was meant by "Western Idlib". The city of Idlib is the capital of Idlib Governorate (region).
In the first photo we see what looks like
a Russian recon UAV Pchela-1TRU (or its visually identical predecessor,
Shmel-1RU):
Comparing to existing Pchela-1T photos, we can confirm it is indeed seen in the Jabhaat al Nusra photo:
(source video)
According
to the UAV's manufacturer's official specificationRU, its radius is 60 km. If we draw a 60km radius circle from the center of Idlib (city) , none of government-controlled airbases would fall into that radius:
circle map tool link or screenshot
[
Given that Pchela-1T requires a bulky launch vehicle (on a tracked or truck chassis), it would seem logical to launch the UAV right from that airbase. Moreover, Russia has previously used that airbase to unload both humanitarian supplies (
video) and military cargo: Reuters sources
told in January 2014of delivering Russian military hardware including UAVs to the Latakia airbase.
Together with the Pchela photo, images of three fighter jets were published. The images' quality is too poor to conclusively identify the fighter jet's model. The images show only jet wing silhouettes, which are almost identical for several different models. Nevertheless, below we show the three images published with suggestions (not ours, but spread through blogs and media) on the jets' models as well as examples of close-up images of these fighters.
Presumably a Sukhoi Su-34 (Fullback):
[Close-up example of a Sukhoi Su-34]
Presumably a Mikoyan MiG-29 (Fulcrum):
[Close-up example of a MiG-29]
Presumably a Sukhoi Su-27 (Flanker):
http://i.imgur.com/54ltieW.jpg
[Close-up example of a Sukhoi Su-27]
We repeat that the images' quality makes it impossible to conclusively identify the models. All the three jets shot could be MiG-29s operated by Syria's Air Force. Here's an image example which shows how similar the three fighter jets are:
[Fighter jet comparison]
However, all the jets were photographed together with a Pchela-1T UAV.
Summing up: The Syrian government is losing territory. Its enemies captured Idlib and Jisr al-Shughur in Spring, coming close to strategically important Latakia. Latakia is Syria's largest port. Near Latakia there's an air base where Russian humanitarian aid and military cargo has been unloaded. In August, a video of fighting near Latakia shows a Russian "BTR-82A" APC, obviously shipped to Syria not from the factory but from a Russian military unit (see color scheme and number). What's even more interesting, the APC has a Russian speaking crew. Several days later, in the skies over Idlib governorate (bordering Latakia governorate) a Russian Pchela-1T UAV is spotted. Simultaneously, three unknown fighter jets are spotted in the same area, their silhouettes resembling MiG-29 / Su-34 / Su-27. The area where "Pchela-1T" was spotted and the UAV's radius prove this UAV could have been launched from the Latakia airbase.