That may well have been, but if NSA, NRO, DIA, CIA or any number of other possible alphabet soup players, hell even the USAF itself, can't tell when the Russian defence minister is taking a flight just because he didn't check in with ATC then we have problems. I don't think that's the case, which means either they can't disseminate the information (I'm which case we have problems), or they deliberately buzzed the aircraft which is a bigger problem because now you have what frankly amounts to a psyop against the Russian defence minister during the most complex and potentially dangerous situation between super and middleweight Powers in decades. Is this really the way to re-establish communications too get out of each other's easy in Raqqa, Shoigu must feel at least a little personally targeted and the world doesn't even know who's giving the orders.
I really hope this is part of a very well thought out and calculating plan, because from what I see the state department can't even keep up with military events and some people don't know if the commander in chief is giving these orders and in consultation with who or if the generals are running the show in Syria when the wrong mission could end in direct conflict in any one of a half dozen countries on at least 2 continents.
Remember when we were all worried about the South China sea, wasn't that nice?
Oh and we don't even have a DPRK thread and the South is up in arms, also aren't we still fighting the Taliban? I asked a few people today, they couldn't remember. Anyone notice that the Saudi king just changed the line of succession to his 31 year old son yesterday, what, a couple weeks after signing a $110 billion arms contract. Plus Qatar, the revolutionary guards essentially co-occupying Iraq and Israel on tenderhooks. This is going to be like a 5 year development and deployment holiday for China, assuming they don't take this chance to get into the ROC or build a bridge too a new island too far or think there's a Japanese island they want to build a casino on.
Oh and Ukraine is flaring up again:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/21/russia-cancels-us-talks-ukraine-sanctions