A Russian unmanned aerial vehicle was reportedly shot down over a rural area in Syria's Aleppo governorate on or around Aug. 2, 2021.

It was initially, erroneously reported that the aircraft was a Turkish proxy militia drone, but later photos and videos of the crash site have identified it as a Russian "Forpost" reconnaissance drone. Although the Forpost is Russian-built and operated, the aircraft design is a licensed copy of the Israeli IAI "Searcher II."

Unconfirmed speculation suggests that Turkey may have shot down the Russian UAV in response to their own drones recently being destroyed by Russian-delivered Syrian Buk-M2E air defense systems.