In response to these US Air Force allegations, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major - General Igor Konashenkov told Russian media on Saturday that «most close - midair encounters between Russian and US
jets in the area around the Euphrates River have been linked to the attempts of US
aircraft to get in the way [of the Russian warplanes]
striking against Islamic State terrorists.»
The S - 300 sale is potentially a threat to intervention by air in the Syrian Civil War by the U.S. or its allies (the U.K. and France, for example, also participated in the chemical weapons retaliation
strike in April of 2018, and Turkish
aircraft have intervened in parts of the Syrian Civil War as well, for example, shooting down a Russian
jet fighter which was intruding into its air space).