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Russia's military involvement in Syria is undeniably a game-changer in the Middle East, US geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser told Sputnik, adding that Washington will definitely try to restore its shrinking positions in the region at all costs.
It is naïve to believe that Washington will eat its humble pie and admit that its decade-long policy in the Middle East has been a complete failure; it is more likely that US hawks will do whatever it takes to bolster their shrinking influence in the region.
At a time when members of the international community could take meaningful steps to assist Syria in its fight against Islamic extremists, NATO has chosen to play the blame game and engage in tough rhetoric.
In general, the answer to the simple question of what the North Atlantic Alliance is exactly doing in Syria is nothing, journalist Artem Aslanyan maintains. "NATO representatives mostly criticize the Assad regime and Russian airstrikes in Syria."
The alliance lacks a comprehensive strategy towards Syria. Member states did not come up with one during NATO's latest summit in September 2014. Back then, the years-long civil war and Islamic State activities took backstage to the conflict in Ukraine.
Iraq and Afghanistan, which once were "liberated and democratized" by the US, are now reaching out for help from Russia in fighting ISIL terrorists. Moscow is ready to help but only in response to an official government request, Il Giornale reported.
Airstrikes in Syria Prove 'Russia Will Not Tolerate Half-Way Measures in Fighting Terrorism' "The balance of power has changed in the Middle East," the article read.
Russian jets have carried out 67 sorties against the Islamic State targets in Syria in past 24 hours, Russian Air Force chief Lieutenant General Igor Makushev told journalists.
Attack aircraft from the Russian air group deployed in Syria carried out record 67 combat missions in the past 24 hours hitting a total of 60 Islamic State targets, the Russian General Staff said Friday.
"In the past 24 hours, the Russian combat aircraft carried out 67 missions. The Sukhoi Su-34 and Su-24SM planes destroyed 60 terrorist targets," Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev told reporters in Moscow.
The Russian Defense Ministry sharply criticized Ash Carter over his remarks predicting Russian casualties in Syria.
The Russian Defense Ministry sharply criticized on Thursday US Defense Secretary Ash Carter over his remarks predicting Russian casualties in Syria in the near future.
Carter said earlier on Thursday that he expected Russian forces in Syria “will begin to suffer casualties" in "coming days” as they provide support in an ongoing ground offensive launched by the Syrian army on Islamic State terrorists.
Iranian defense ministry believes reports on "fallen Russian cruise missiles" are part of the intensified western propaganda war, according to a source.
Tehran has denied US reports that four of Russia's cruise missiles targeting ISIL actually fell to the ground in Iran, with the country's defense ministry calling the accusations "psychological war."
Russia's Defense Ministry also refutes US media reports of an alleged incident involving cruise missiles which were fired at ISIL positions in Syria on October 7, stating that all missiles hit their designated targets.
An F-16 aircraft conducting patrol flights along the Turkish-Syrian border was harassed by the Syrian missile systems for 30 seconds, according to the statement of the Turkish General Staff.
ANKARA – The Turkish General Staff accused Syrian air defense system radars on Wednesday of "harassing" its aircraft on the Turkish-Syrian border.
"Eight F-16 aircraft conducted patrol flights along the Turkish-Syrian border. During this mission, our plane was harassed by the Syrian missile systems for 30 seconds," the general staff said in a statement, referring to an incident that took place on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the Turkish General Staff said an unidentified MiG-29 followed its F-16 fighters that were patrolling the Turkish-Syrian border and activated its target system for 4.5 minutes the previous day.
Today, President Vladimir Putin is celebrating his 63rd birthday. As expected, the leader's special day has caused a ruckus on social media, with supporters both inside and outside Russia already coming up with some clever ways to congratulate the leader.
Greetings on your birthday, President Putin. I pray for your long life, good health & happiness. @KremlinRussia_E
The president is reported to be celebrating his birthday in a rather reserved manner, spending it as just another day at work. However, he does have plans to play some hockey with famous veteran hockey players and members of the Night Hockey League later today. As expected, the president has already received some traditional birthday greetings from foreign leaders. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Belarus have sent their best wishes. Putin was also congratulated by Narendra Modi, who offered a more up-to-date form of greeting, wishing Putin "long life, good health & happiness" in a tweet. The prime minister's tweet has already received 1,000 retweets. Naturally, the president also received greetings from Russian political figures, from parliamentarians to governors and republican leaders. Probably the warmest message of greeting came from Chechen Republic leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who congratulated the president on Instagram.
Kadyrov's message of congratulations praised Putin as "the most popular, courageous, strong, wise, and strong-willed politician in the world," wishing him "good health, good luck and success" in his "very difficult and responsible work!"
The Russian president also received congratulations from famous artists and public figures, including world-famous Italian musicians Toto Cutugno, Pupo, Al Bano, Ricchi e Poveri and Riccardo Fogli, who noted on a Facebook page of an Italian Putin fan club page that the Russian president is today "the main bulwark against the unipolar world and international terrorism!"
The news media joined in on the fun, Ruptly offering a humorous compilation of the president's greatest moments of 2015.
Even the normally anti-Putin liberal English-language newspaper The Moscow Times couldn't help but fete the president, creating an entire article, suspiciously reminiscent of a recent Sputnik piece, complete with quotes and GIFs, on the president's anniversary.
Celebrities and politicians aside, Putin has also received a ton of congratulations from social media users around the world, with the hashtag #PutinDay catching fire on Twitter. Users from Russia and around the world congratulated the Russian president on his special day.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has released video footage showing its nighttime cruise missile strikes from the Caspian Sea against Islamic State targets in Syria.
The assembled footage features video and animation of Russian ships launching cruise missile strikes against Islamic State targets from the Caspian Sea. The video combines computer-generated imagery showing the cruise missiles' trajectory with footage of the missiles flying over western Iran and northern Iraq before arriving at their targets in northern Syria.
A recent series of airstrikes launched by Russian air forces against the Islamic State in Syria caused the ISIL militants to evacuate their checkpoints in Raqqa and to cancel all public events there.
A source in the Islamic State’s so-called 'capital' told Sputnik on condition of anonymity that Russian airstrikes have caused widespread panic among the Islamist militants who apparently were not expecting such a relentless assault.
"They thought that Russian warplanes would act like their American counterparts – that they would launch some sporadic surgical strikes at dusk and then they would fly away," the source said. "Instead, Russian military aircraft constantly bombard ISIS positions in the vicinity of Raqqa, and these massed strikes have completely paralyzed the Islamist group’s activities. The Russian air operation proved to be extremely effective."
The Western media seems to be so upset with the success of Russia’s anti-ISIL campaign that it has gone as far as accusing the Russian Foreign Ministry’s overseas envoys of “disparaging the efforts of the US and its allies, who have armed non-extremist anti-government forces in the country.”
This complaint, voiced by the UK newspaper The Independent, came in response to a tweet posted by Russia's Embassy in the United Arab Emirates.
The vast majority of refugees arriving in Finland are in fact male adults and not women or children, according to the country’s Ministry of the Interior.
The head of Finland's Immigration Services asylum unit, Esko Repo, and communications chief Hanna Kautto told the Finnish news outlet Yle that out of the 19,632 refugees that have arrived in Finland this year, over 15 thousand are adult males. The number of female migrants totals 2,816 and there are also about 2,000 children travelling with adults as well as roughly one thousand unaccompanied minors. Furthermore, only 409 of the refugees came from Syria, with the majority of the migrants – nearly 14 thousand people – arriving from Iraq.
A Russian military spokesman dismissed earlier reports that Russian warplanes had bombed the ancient city of Palmyra, as was claimed by several international media outlets.
Russian warplanes destroyed an ISIL command center on the outskirts of Syria's Palmyra, killing up to 40 militants, a Syrian military source told Sputnik on Tuesday. The command center was located near the town of As Sukhnah 28 km away from Palmyra.
Question 1:In
the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful. Mr.
President, thank you very much for accepting the invitation of the
Television of the Islamic Republic of Iran to give this interview. Thank
you very much.
This AP “photograph”, which clearly proves that Russia is destroying the Middle East, has been floating around the Internet. Do you notice something odd about it?
Yes: Putin's blood-soaked fangs aren't that large. But also:
that’s just sloppy
Aside from the hands, which clearly do not belong to the same body, what's up with that poster? The over-the-top concave (created by the firm grip of the painted, mutant hand), the crappy Photoshop shadow effect…Come on. This is embarrassing.
Keep up the good work, Associated Press.
UPDATE: This might actually be a case of “terrible nails”. Reader “Simon” points out that there are other pictures of this woman. As such, we apologize for jumping the proverbial gun. (AP still bites the big one, though.)
Russia's Foreign Minister said Russia was willing to work with the Syrian opposition army to settle the crisis in Syria.
Moscow is prepared to set up contacts with the opposition's Free Syrian Army and have asked the United States for information on them, but so far Moscow has not received a response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
"In any case, I asked [US Secretary of State] John Kerry to have [the United States] give us some sort of information of where the Free Syrian Army is and who's running it," Lavrov said.
The state-of-the-art Russian electronic warfare system Krasukha-4 has reportedly been deployed in Syria.
The Russian military has deployed its mobile, ground-based electronic warfare system Krasukha-4 in Syria, according to footage placed on Russia's Zvezda news network.
At the beginning of the video (the 6th second), which shows a Russian-made Su-25 landing at a Syrian airfield, a characteristic set of antenna devices is visible in the background. These could be the Krasukha-4 system, Zvezda reported.
The Western media is lamenting as Russia wrecks the nearly-set agreement of the US-led coalition to establish a no-fly zone over Syria based on Jordanian and Turkish plans, despite jihadist groups lacking any aerial strike capabilities, while adding that the US and its allies have begun “preparing to open up a major front in northeastern Syria”.
“The Russian forces now in place make it very, very obvious that any kind of no-fly zone on the Libyan model imposed by the US and allies is now impossible, unless the coalition is actually willing to shoot down Russian aircraft,” The Financial Times quotes Justin Bronk, a research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute as saying.
Russia’s participation in the fight against ISIL in Syria could bring some major changes in the balance of power in the Middle East, Semyon Bagdasarov, the director of the Center for the Middle East and Central Asian Studies, told Radio Sputnik.
On Wednesday, Russia launched airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria following a request from President Bashar Assad. The Syrian government is fighting a number of opposition forces and radical Islamist militant organizations. Continue..
