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In an Al-Jazeera TV interview on February 10, Russian political analyst and former diplomat Viacheslav Matuzov said: "I believe that Russia gave the Syrian army the green light (to down the Israeli F-16)." While in the past, Russia encouraged Syria to "avoid opening a second front" in cases of strikes against the Syrian army or its allies, "today, things have changed," he said. According to Matuzov, Israel "committed a strategic mistake, because it did not take into consideration the political and military changes in Syria."
Russian Political Analyst Viacheslav Matuzov: Israel has committed a strategic mistake, because it did not take into consideration the political and military changes in Syria.
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I believe that Russia gave the Syrian army the green light [to down the Israeli F-16]. In the past, it was known that in cases of violations by military aircraft, and air strikes against the Syrian army or its allies on Syrian soil, Russia encouraged the Syrians to avoid opening a second front, whether a southern front [against Israel] or a northern one against the Americans. Russia tried to limit the crisis to the fight against terrorism. It seems that Israel did not take the political and military changes in Syria into consideration.
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I am 100% certain that Russia did not give Israel permission to launch strikes in Syria. Perhaps in the past there were some kind of understandings that [Israel] would not launch strikes and [Russia] would not encourage [retaliation], but today, things have changed.
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