section_path: History/2011–2020
section_name: 2011–2020
paragraph_text: 2011–2020
  
  According to the instructions of the General Staff of the Armed Forces on 1 September 2011, the unmanned aircraft of the VVS and the personnel operating them moved under the command structure of the Russian Ground Forces.
  
  As of 2012, the VVS operated a total of 61 air bases, including 26 air bases with tactical aircraft, of which 14 are equipped with fighter aircraft. In terms of flight hours, pilots in the Western Military District averaged 125 hours over the 2012 training year. Pilots from the Kursk air base achieved an average of 150 hours, with transport aviation averaging 170 hours.
  
  In February 2014, during the early periods of Russia's annexation of Crimea, the assets of the VVS in the Southern Military District were activated and flown to the peninsula for supporting the rest of the operations.
  
  On 1 August 2015, the Russian Air Force, along with the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces and the Air Defense Troops, were merged into a new branch of the armed forces, now officially called the Russian Aerospace Forces.
  
  On 30 September 2015, the VVS launched a military intervention in Syria, in Syria 's Homs region. On 24 November 2015, during a bombing mission, a Turkish Air Force F-16 shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 that Turkey claimed had violated its airspace.
  
  In March 2020, the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets by the VVS in Syria has been described as "amounting to war crime" by a United Nations Human Rights Council report.
  
  On 9 November 2020, a Russian Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter was shot down mistakenly by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war killing 2 crew members and injuring 1 more. Days later, after the signing of the ceasefire agreement, Russian peacekeepers were deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh with aviation to patrol its borders.