General Konashenkov: Russia will take down any unidentified flying objects in Syria
Now, a Russian major general is offering the statement that Russian air and missile defense systems have a greater range of operation than Washington suspects, one that :"might be a surprise to all unidentified flying objects." Again, one is confronted with two possible interpretations. At the first and more prosaic, and therefore, more probable level, "unidentified flying objects" could be taken to mean "unidentifiable through transponder signals or any other conventional method of identification," in other words, an "unknown" but conventional aircraft violating Syrian airspace and not responding to commands to identify itself.
But a Russian major general using such language is not going to be oblivious to how this choice of words would sound when translated into English, and to an American audience. Recall only a few months ago, the US army General Kinney made remarks about soldiers, sailors and airmen having to fight "little green men," and I speculated that given the colloquial meaning of such a phrase, he was hinting that we might have to be (or already are) engaged in a covert war in space with "little green men." Of course, at that time, I received angry emails and comments that this was simply a well-known military code for "Russian special forces." At that time, I responded "nonsense," language is language and these men do not speak nor choose their words oblivious to their colloquial and common meaning.
The same, I argue, applies with General Konashenkov's remarks, for he knows full well what the colloquial meaning of "unidentified flying objects" is in the English. To put it bluntly, it means firstly "flying saucers," nuts and bolts high technology of an extraterrestrial, non-human nature and original, and less widely, it implies advanced human black projects propulsion technology. So what's he saying? On this extremely speculative analysis and view, he could be saying (1) we can shoot down the high tech of any "allies" you may have hovering "out there", or (2) any of your own secret high tech, or (3) both.
Of course, the first view, the more prosaic one, is probably what is in view, but the simple fact remains that the other interpretations cannot be excluded, especially given the fact that other strange remarks were made in the same time frame, from Iraq.