The United States and Russia are disputing the circumstances of an engagement between combat aircraft from both countries over Syria that almost resulted in a collision, the latest in what the U.S. military says are becoming a steady stream of unprofessional and dangerous aerial incidents. But what makes this new report almost bizarre is the Kremlin’s version of the story is nearly identical to one from weeks earlier that American officials say never occurred, raising the question of whether some portion of these reports may be deliberate misinformation. The basic facts of the new intercept, as much as both sides agree on them, are that a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jammed itself in front of a pair of Russian Air Force Su-25 Frogfoots near the Syrian city of Al Mayadin. The American jet, cutting across the path of the Russian aircraft, dropped decoy flares and possibly chaff in an attempt to get the Russians to change course, a tactic commonly known as “head-butting,” according to Fox News. Similar tactics, also referred to as "thumping" have been used in the past by American fighters during similar incidents over Syria. Beyond that, the United States and Russia have significantly different accounts of what happened and where.

The Pentagon says the Russian jets crossed over to the eastern side of the Euphrates River in Syria and either could not or would not respond to radio calls on an emergency channel to leave the area. At present, the United States and Russia officially acknowledge the waterway as a deconfliction boundary between their respective activities in the country. They have agreed that the Russians will stay to the west of the river, while the U.S. military and its partners will stay on the eastern side. “We’re trying to kill ISIS,” Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesperson, told The Washington Post. “But we’re also trying to contend with unsafe interaction with Russian jets.”

Vitaly Kuzmin A Russian Air Force Su-25 Frogfoot.

Pahon told multiple outlets that the encounter lasted approximately 40 minutes and that at one point, one of the Frogfoots maneuvered dangerously close to the Raptor almost causing a collision. He added that Russian aircraft violate the deconfliction line between six and eight times a day on average, amounting to approximately 10 percent of their total sorties in Syria. Underscoring the issue, a Russian Su-35S Flanker E fighter jet reportedly crossed the boundary during the other intercept, while a second F-22 shadowed that aircraft's movement. The Russians deny this version of events. In its own statement, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that the Frogfoots had been escorting a humanitarian convoy on the western side of the Eurphrates. The Kremlin says it was actually the F-22 that crossed the deconfliction line to harass its jets.

Mikhail Voskresenskiy/Sputnik via AP A Russian Air Force Su-35S Flanker E.

"A Russian Su-35 fighter jet, performing an air cover mission at an altitude of 10,000 meters, swiftly approached the F-22 from the rear," their statement added. The pilot reportedly succeeded in "forcing the American aircraft to leave the area." It seems difficult to believe that the pilots in the F-22s did not have an accurate understanding of their position or would have crossed the deconfliction line without any provocation. A weekly intelligence summary from the U.S. Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT) Combined Intelligence Fusion Center (CIFC), situated at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which we obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, does include a section on GPS jamming.

USAF via FOIA A portion of the table of contents for the CIFC Weekly Intelligence Summary for Dec. 1 to 7, 2016.

Unfortunately, censored redacted the entire content of those passages, so we have no idea whether or not there have been any actual reported incidents. The United States has not publicly alleged that the Russians, or anyone else in the region, are interfering with coalition operations in Iraq and Syria in this way. There are separate reports of the Kremlin blocking or confusing the satellite navigation system in Europe, though. Also the F-22's navigation suite is very capable, and like most all modern combat aircraft, it doesn't rely on GPS alone. Its ring-laser-gyro inertial navigation system can work effectively without GPS. Other sensors, including the aircraft's AN/APG-77 AESA radar and ALR-94 electronic support measures suite can can help in geolocating targets and to figure out the place in space and time the F-22 occupies in relation to its surrounding environment. Regardless of what details are right or wrong in this case, it does seem clear that these incidents are becoming increasingly common. However, that doesn’t mean that we should expect them to play out the same way every time. So, it seems particularly noteworthy that the Russian government alleges that American pilots were responsible for another incident on Nov. 23, 2017 that was functionally identical to the one on Dec. 13, 2017.

USAF An F-22 Raptor.