INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS GROUP FINISHES INVESTIGATION

C O N F I D E N T I A L TBILISI 000753 SIPDIS DEPT. FOR EUR/CARC E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/06/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV MOPS GG SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS GROUP FINISHES INVESTIGATION ON APRIL 20 UAV INCIDENT REF: TBILISI 727 Classified By: Ambassador John F. Tefft, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: The Georgian Ministry of Defense announced on May 5 that the group of international experts has completed its investigation of the April 20 shootdown (reftel) of a Georgian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The report has been cleared for release and will be presented to the Georgian government on May 6 by the Lithuanian Ambassador. The international experts team consisted of air surveillance and radar data experts from Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and the United States. The team's purpose was to report on the credibility of the Georgian radar and video evidence, not to analyze or draw conclusions as to what the evidence shows. The report concludes that the evidence is genuine and accurate. In a May 2 meeting with the DCM, the two USAF experts shared some of their conclusions that were not included in the report to avoid politicizing it. They said that they were 100% certain that it was not an L-39 jet, despite Abkhaz and Russian assertions to the contrary, and "had no doubt" that a Russian aircraft was responsible, probably an SU-27. They added that the radar tracks make it very unlikely that the SU-27 took off from Gudauta and that the Georgians do not have the experience or the systems capability to have falsified the radar data. End summary. U.S. Experts "have no doubt" it was a Russian jet -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) In a May 2 meeting with the DCM, the two USAF experts shared some of their conclusions that were not included in the formal report to avoid politicizing it. They said they were 100% certain that it was not an L-39 jet, despite Abkhaz and Russian assertions to the contrary. Combining what they learned from this trip and from other sources, they said they had "no doubt" that a Russian aircraft did it, probably an SU-27. The radar tracks make it very unlikely that the SU-27 took off from Gudauta. They surmised that if the Georgian radar operator had been more proficient, he would have picked up the fighter further north, possibly with enough notice for the UAV to have escaped. They said that the Georgians do not likely have the capability to have falsified the radar data because they lack the expertise and the systems capability to do it. Best estimate of the sequence of events -------------- ¶3. (C) The USAF experts said that their best estimate of the sequence of events with both the March 18 and April 20 UAV incidents is that the Russians scrambled an SU-27 that took out the UAV from above with an infrared missile, which is why the UAV did not catch it on video. The radar data from March 18 suggests the aircraft came from and returned to Russia and was too fast to be anything but Russian. On April 20, the SU-27 probably missed its target on the first pass, perhaps because the missile did not lock on when fired from above due to background chaff on the surface. The SU-27 then went below the UAV for a cleaner shot up into the sky, which is why the UAV could catch it on video. TEFFT