A Russian Su-35 fighter in Syria buzzed and harassed a US MC-12 turboprop surveillance plane, causing it to fly through severe turbulence, putting the four-person crew in danger, Politico reports. The latest in a string of unprofessional and dangerous interactions between US and Russian aircraft patrolling over the civil war, it joins a string of rather routine harassment of unmanned Reaper drones.
Gleened from the Politico report is the fact that such harassment on another occasion interfered with a US Special Operations mission to assassinate an ISIS leader, who was eliminated at a later date. Also, the US and Russians have a “de-escalation phone” on which the two sides are supposed to try to calm each other down in real-time as these events unfold, but it apparently rapidly devolves into blame-assigning and name-calling.