Turkey's whoopsie.

Hey readers! Long time, sorry again.

So... I've been compelled to write by the events of the past few days. As you might have read, because it's been all over the news, Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian combat aircraft in what they claim was their airspace. A claim furiously disputed by both the Russian military authorities and the surviving pilot.

Wait, surviving pilot?

Yeah... The air force of a NATO member just killed a Russian airman. 'Oh boy' you might think, 'that ain't good'. Well guess what? You'd be bang on the money. It's not good. For anyone. At all. Oh also a Russian marine died in the rescue effort so that's great. In all seriousness though, RIP Oleg Peshkov and Alexander Pozynych, we're not at war with your country. Yet.

So the situation in Syria is a goddamn mess right now as i've covered in previous posts, there's 2 dozen actors on the ground with differing ideologies and goals scattered all about the shattered shell of what was once a vaguely functional nation, I won't go into who's who or where the blame lies right now because hell that's complicated even for me. But besides the bloody (literally unfortunately) mess on the ground we also have some rather crowded air space.

The Americans are bombing Syria - namely ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh (whatever your preferred name for them is) targets, so is , Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates with the UK just on the cusp of joining in, although we're already stuck in over Iraq along with the other chaps as well as Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany too. This is known as 'Combined Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve'.

 Then there's Russia, who unlike everyone else is clinging onto Bashir Al-Assad for thinly veiled geo-political and strategic reasons. Not that I particularly blame them, Russia has had a long history of Relations with Syria and has enjoyed close ties with the Assad family for decades, plus their naval base in Tartus is Russia's only foothold in the Mediterranian both a real and symbolic reminder of Russian military power. Real in the sense that yes it does exist, symbolic in the sense that it is what remains of the former Soviet Union's once formidable forward basing capability. In the face of what it sees as NATO/US encroachment on its back yard Russia is unwilling to let go of this last thorn in the side of NATO naval dominance in the region.

So what the hell happened?

Well put simply one of these:

A pair of Turkish Air Force F-16s

Shot down one of these:

Su-24s in flight

I'm not going to upload a picture of the thing going down in flames but it wasn't pretty. This isn't the first time Russian aircraft have violated Turkish airspace in recent years, Syrian aircraft did it a lot at the start of this whole business too, it happens. It shouldn't but it does. Its unclear as to whether or not the aircraft was actually over Turkish airspace or not at this point, Turkey vehmently maintians that it was, Russia is arguing until its blue in the face that it wasn't. Even more worrying are the claims by the surviving pilot that he recieved no warning from the Turkish pilots before being shot down again this is something that is disputed by the Turkish authorities. NATO has come out as saying that it believes Turkey's version of events but I wonder how far that rhetoric is carried on behind closed doors. Frankly Turkey has been a little too twitchy of late and these are the consequences of that. This is the first time that a Soviet/Russian aircraft has been downed by a NATO power in fifty years. Am I worried? A little yes.

Now Russia has outright stated that all future strike missions will have a dedicated fighter escorts and they have deployed a destroyer nearby in a dedicated air defence role, they've also warned of dire consequences for Russo-Turkish relations - an understandable reacation given the circumstances.

Let me be clear I am in no way a supporter of Russian foriegn or defence policy, to my mind their recent actions in Donbass, Crimea, Georgia and Syria have been distasteful to say the least, understandable from a Russian perspective perhaps, but distasteful. However the waters are too muddy for me to decry Russian actions in this particular case as things stand. The Turkish are certainly not blameless, I feel that the shooting down of this aircraft was needlessly agressive, noted I was not in the air at the time and I am just a spectator here, but with that comes the value of some objectivity. Britain's airspace is probed by Russian aircraft on a near daily basis, granted we don't have a war next door threatening to spill over our borders. Will this be the start of a third world war? Unlikely, but there is a great deal to be said for restraint. Particularly when the guys you just shot down work for the country with the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet.

Just saying.

Anyway thanks for reading.

wheelchairman2