Israeli Air Force F-16s flying in formation. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Israel has promised Russia it will do everything possible to avoid harming Russian troops deployed in Syria, Moscow’s deputy ambassador to the Jewish state told the Hebrew news site Walla in an interview published on Tuesday in honor of Victory Day — the anniversary of the end of World War II.

“We have a mechanism to coordinate actions to prevent incidents in the skies over Syria,” Alexei Drobini said. “Since the mechanism was established in September 2015, it has been functioning quite well and incidents have been averted. I hope that also in the future there will not be a situation in which Russian forces on the ground in Syria are hit.”

Russia and Israel, Drobini noted, are in “constant dialogue about what is going in Syria” via “different Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry channels.”

Drobini also stated that his country would be willing to help the Trump administration in an effort to renew the Israel-Palestinian peace process. However, he added, “we haven’t received any such requests from the American side. Our impression is the US government has not yet formulated a position regarding its future steps, also in other areas.”