By Vaughn Hoisington | RUSSIA

On January 6, thirteen unmanned aerial vehicles were programmed to attack two Russian Military Facilities in Syria through the use of bomblets. The perpetrators of this attack failed, as seven drones were shot down and the other six were disrupted by electronic warfare devices. Neither Russia’s Hmeymim airbase nor their fleet supply base in Tartus sustained any damage during these attacks.

Russian Major General Alexander Novikov believes the attack was perpetrated by “specialists, who had undergone special training,” since “the creation of drones of this class is impossible in an improvised manner.” Novikov’s reasoning for this assumption was the complexity of the software that would be needed to make ammunition efficiently strike the target location when working on tight parameters, due to altitude, flight and wind speed.

The Russian Defense Ministry has stated that the drones were launched from Muazzar, an area inside the Idlib de-escalation zone. The Defense Ministry also warned other countries about the possibility of more UAV attacks across the globe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that these UAV attacks “were undoubtedly prepared well.” Putin went on to mention that the aerial vehicles had been disguised as homemade, “but it is obvious that some high-tech equipment was used.”

Putin expressed that the terrorists intended to damage Russia’s relations with Turkey and Iran. He went on to state that “there were some provocateurs, but they were not Turks. We know who they are, who paid who for this provocation and what the actual sum was. As for this kind of incidents, there is nothing good about them. These are provocations aimed at destroying previous agreements.”