The Defense Ministry, which issued a statement threatening Israel the day after the incident, is taking a hard line. Putin himself spoke softly, almost forgivingly, about a series of tragic mistakes. And Russian officers in contact with Israeli colleagues dealt mainly with professional issues – what caused the incident and what should be fixed to prevent a recurrence. [...]
New bilateral understandings apparently haven’t yet been finalized and probably won’t be publicized. But at least in the short term, Russia will presumably try to put some restrictions on Israel’s freedom of action, either by distancing Israeli planes from Russian bases in northern Syria or by demanding greater advance notice of every strike. [...]
A third country was notably absent from the Russian-Israeli tensions caused by the downed plane – the United States. Until a few years ago, Washington was involved in almost every important Mideast development. A good example is UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War. The United States and France were heavily involved in drafting it, but Russia, which also has a permanent Security Council seat, was almost completely uninvolved.
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