... Air Force, the Syrian army has launched offensive operations and liberated populated areas near Homs, Hama, Latakia, Deyr az-Zor, Idlib, and Aleppo, from the Islamic State
[4]
.
EPA / ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO
Igor Ivanov:
Putin’s Plan
However, Russian actions to counter the Islamic State are not an end in itself. The Russian leadership and Ministry of Foreign Affairs see the elimination of IS and other extremist groups as a pre-condition to push forward a political process in order to solve the Syrian crisis and stabilize ...
As combat aircraft from Russia and the United States shadow each other over Syrian airspace, director Steven Spielberg has created an Oscar-quality film about what happened when the Soviet Union shot down an American spy plane near Sverdlovsk on May 1st 1960.
The event was ...
According to official statements, Russia deployed its Aerospace Defence Forces to support Bashar al-Assad in order to combat the ISIS terrorist group. Western leaders have subtly hinted that Moscow’s goal is to save al-Assad and protect its interests in Syria. The Ukrainian elite ...
... several European ambassadors
and experts together in a meeting behind closed doors to mull over the ways out of the deadlocked relations between Russia and the European Union.
Participants suggested that waging war against a common foe in the form of Islamic State, which is banned in Russia, is unlikely to help Russia and the West overcome their differences. Today, this relationship seems to be in the middle of the deepest decline in recent history, coupled with a crisis of confidence that emerged long before the Ukraine events. The ...
Speaking to reporters on Saturday at the 6th Xiangshan Security Forum in the Chinese capital of Beijing, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Moscow has not yet received a request for military assistance from the Iraqi government in the fight against the Takfiri terror network, but it would consider such an appeal, Tass news agency reported....
...
What about the danger of being drawn into wider involvement on the ground if, say, one of Russia's jets malfunctions and a pilot is forced to eject?
Wouldn't more ground troops be needed to rescue a pilot, especially one who falls into the hands of the Islamic State, which has shown its willingness to publicly torture enemy pilots to death?
"On the ground, Russian air group is relying on the support and help of the Syrian armed forces," Buzhinsky says.
As to whether that means the Syrian armed forces are providing force protection for Russians, "I hope so," Buzhinsky says. "I hope so....
The intensification of the conflict in the Middle East, the operation by Russian Aerospace Defence Forces in the Syrian Arab Republic and the diametrically opposed positions of state leaders in relation to the current president Bashar al-Asad continue to be the main events on the agenda. Damascus has become the epicentre of ...
... strikes conducted both by the Russian Air Force and the Syrian Arab Air Force could be confused. In fact several days before Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the anti-terrorist campaign Syrian Arab Air Force
was reported
using newly-arrived Russian planes to bomb Islamic State terrorists in the Aleppo province in northern Syria. Even large media organizations confirm that they cannot independently verify who carried out air strikes on several occasions. This means that at least a portion of air strikes ascribed ...
... be regarded as a sign of progress.
Syria was the only issue on the agenda, or nearly so, that reflects the current state of Russian-US bilateral relations, in which raising a broader range of issues does not make much sense. Overall, the differences ... ... nothing to do with cooperation in fighting a common enemy. The fact that both leaders are speaking about a coalition to combat the Islamic State points to different, not coinciding, approaches, since the two have their own vision of the coalition that should ...
... ().
The Druze amidst the Arab Spring development and the Islamic State activity in the region
The process of establishing the Islamic State, which can be regarded as a stage of the Arab Spring development, compels the opposing forces, including the Druze,... ... boundaries, rather than with fictitious administrative ones. As a result, the plans of Americans and of Israelis may not coincide.
Russia and the Druze
Due to historical reasons, Moscow has comparatively weak contacts with the Druze, since the latter have not ...
