A video published on YouTube shows U.S. and Russian military officials discussing how to avoid colliding with each other over Syria, which one report says was secretly recorded by the Russians.
In the video posted last week, Russian military officials are seen holding a video teleconference with representatives from the U.S. defense secretary’s office and U.S. Central Command headquarters.
News of the video, reported by CNN, comes amid increasingly provocative moves by the Russians. On Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said U.S. military aircraft have been forced to alter their flight paths to avoid Russian aircraft over Syria.
In Italy on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters that the U.S. is not cooperating strategically with Russia, since the U.S. is fighting the Islamic State and Russian airstrikes have reportedly targeted enemies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which the U.S. has said is a dangerous move.
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The U.S. is, however, seeking to work more with Russia in order to avoid collisions in the air.
“We are not prepared to cooperate in a strategy, which is we explained, is flawed, tragically flawed on the Russian’s part,” Carter said. “And that is why I said the United States is not cooperating with Russia in that regard. What we are prepared to do and have sought a meeting to do is to agree on safety — professional air safety procedures to make sure that — that to protect our air crews and to continue as the coalition intends to do, its air campaign unchanged.”
Also on Wednesday, news surfaced that Russia had struck targets in Syria, not from attack jets, but using cruise missiles launched from warships in the Caspian Sea. Such strikes, from roughly 1,000 miles away, require flying missiles over Iranian and Iraqi airspace, which experts say is meant to prove a point to the West.
“This was specifically done to show bravado … it’s chest thumping,” Christopher Harmer, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told the Military Times. “We’ve known all along the Russian’s have, quote-unquote, the capability on paper. Having the capability on paper is one thing … demonstrating that in a combat scenario is another.”
