ALEPPO, Syria — A Russian pilot patrolling the skies over Syria claimed he had an "Aleppo moment" yesterday after he forget that he was supposed to bomb terrorists, and not the civilian targets directly below him.

The pilot, Capt. Sergei Petrov, apologized for the harmless gaffe soon after he dropped a number of bombs on a suburb of Aleppo that killed half-a-dozen women and children.

"Oh boy, I guess I just had an 'Aleppo moment' right there," Petrov told reporters. "It's so weird. My pre-mission flight brief emphasized that we were killing terrorists and that's who I thought I was wiping out."

"These terrorists are so good they have infiltrated our intelligence and have made us think they are operating only in places where civilians are," he added.

The phrase "Aleppo moment" has come to prominence in the 2016 election cycle. While it used to mean "a time and place considered an apex of horror where civilians are constantly being killed for the crime of living," the phrase has found a new meaning as just a common mistake, popularized by Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson.

When reached for comment, Johnson asked, "What is Russia?"

The Russian Ministry of Defense says that Petrov will be back on the job tomorrow, and he is gearing up for an airstrike targeting the ISIS stronghold of Homs.