The Pentagon believes that the channel for preventing conflicts and incidents between Russian and American troops in Syria is working, and the United States will continue to use such communication lines. This was announced on Monday, November 1, by the press secretary of the military department John Kirby at a briefing.
The journalists asked the representative of the Ministry of Defense to comment on the information of the American media about the possibility of Russia transferring its Su-35 fighters to Qamishli in Syria and whether their deployment would cause concern to the United States.
"I cannot talk about the deployment of Russian [forces and means] inside Syria. As you know, we have a deconfliction channel with Russians that really works. And we really use it to guarantee the prevention of miscalculations and unintended consequences," said the official representative of the US Department of Defense.
Kirby also stressed that the United States is going to continue using this deconfliction channel.
On August 26, it was reported that several American soldiers were injured in an accident involving a Russian patrol in Syria. The servicemen received a concussion.
Later, the representative of the US National Security Council, John Elliott, accused the Russian military of violating the rules of conflict prevention in Syria and committing an accident. According to him, the accident occurred on the morning of August 25 near the village of Derik, where "Russian equipment crashed into an armored car of the coalition, as a result of which the crew of the car was injured."
The Russian Defense Ministry said that the United States military tried to block the Russian patrol in Syria in violation of existing agreements. The department also said that the command had warned the American side in advance about the passage of a column of Russian military police.
On August 27, at a briefing, the head of the Center for Reconciliation of the Warring Parties in Syria, Alexei Posunko, said that the Russian patrol had taken all possible measures to prevent an incident with the US military in Syria.
The military commander said that on August 25, a group of military police of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria was engaged in a planned patrol of the territory in the northeast of this Arab country. Five armored vehicles patrolled the territory in the direction of the settlement of Baterzan, 50 km east of the city of Kamishliya.
The air cover of the patrol was carried out by helicopters of army aviation. Their use is permitted by the current Russian-American protocols on the deconfliction procedure of December 9, 2019.
On August 28, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said that the United States expects the Russian military to return to compliance with the conflict prevention mechanism in Syria after the incident in the northeast of the country, as a result of which, according to Washington, American servicemen were injured.
