Russian report: US moves to close Syrian airspace to Russia

The US has deployed sophisticated radar systems in Syria as a preamble to imposing no-fly zones on the Russians and Syrians according to Svobodnaya Pressa, a Russian outlet.

The report argues that  “Trump’s regular comments on the high cost of the Syrian campaign have given many reasons to believe that US forces will withdraw in the near future from Syria.”

However, Alexei Leonkov, an expert on military affairs, ruled out the assumption that the Americans would leave.

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Leonkov suggested, “The United States never abandons a country where it has participated in war unless it has suffered a final defeat or a stark national disgrace. The deployment of new equipment in the Kurdish areas is because Washington does not have any more land that may be of value in Syria, as the rest of the territory was returned to or will soon return to Damascus.

The newspaper guest added: “our source in the military leadership said that the news about the deployment of radars is not new. The US has already planned to create no-fly zones. It was announced last year when the US shot down a Syrian plane and then reported that it had violated airspace. This is, of course, ridiculous, because the plane belongs to Syrian forces, and was in the skies of Syria; thus it cannot violate the Syrian airspace.”