MOSCOW, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian defense minister dismissed claims Wednesday that Lithuania had taken the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system from the wreckage of the Russian fighter that crashed in the country in September.
Sergei Ivanov said: "Talk about this system falling into another [country's] hands is speculation and hot air."
Earlier, NATO-member Lithuania said it had discovered a secret Russian IFF system in the wreckage of the Russian Su-27 that crashed on route from St. Petersburg to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on September 15.
Ivanov said that Russian experts had clearly said several times that the fighter's IFF software had a three-level security protection system. When the pilot ejects from the aircraft and when the plane hits the ground, the system's self-destruct mechanism activates, he said.
