“Unlike Syria and Iran, Russia has no interest in fighting for territory,” he says.
“Moscow had sought to steadily destroy the moderate Syrian opposition on the battlefield, leaving only jihadist forces in play, and lock the US into a political framework of negotiations that would serve beyond the shelf-life of this administration.
“In both respects, it has been successful.
“Ultimately, the Russian goal is to lock in gains for Syria via ceasefires, while slow-rolling the negotiations to the point that true opposition to the Syrian regime expires on the battlefield, leaving no viable alternatives for the West in this conflict come 2017.
“Russia’s intervention, seeks to minimise losses, relying largely on the ground power of other actors to do most of the fighting, with its officers embedded in order to glue the military effort together and coordinate air strikes.”
Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t make a military move into Ukraine — even though Putin already has done just that, seizing the country’s Crimean peninsula.
“He’s not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want,” Trump said in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.”
“Well, he’s already there, isn’t he?” Stephanoploulos responded, in a reference to Crimea, which Putin took from Ukraine in early 2014.
And the Dems nominated someone who will continue the foreign policy that allowed this to happen.
In a surprise move, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to start withdrawing the “main part” of its forces in Syria from Tuesday.
He said the Russian intervention had largely achieved its objectives.
The comments come amid fresh peace talks in Geneva aimed at resolving the five-year Syrian conflict.
[…]
Russia’s intervention has achieved its main goals – consolidating President Assad’s position, enabling his forces to re-take key pieces of strategic territory and ensuring that Mr Assad remains a factor in any future Syrian settlement.
Mr Putin said that Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Latakia province and its Mediterranean naval base at Tartus would continue to operate as normal. He said both must be protected “from land, air and sea”.
Once again, Putin thumbs his nose at the international peace process and acts unilaterally. It just shows what a farce that process is. America would be better served acting according to its best interests as a great power and bringing our allies along rather than trying to do everything based on consensus with our enemies.
MUNICH/AMMAN (Reuters) – Major powers agreed on Friday to a pause in combat in Syria, but Russia pressed on with bombing in support of its ally President Bashar al-Assad, who vowed to fight until he regained full control of the country.
Although billed as a potential breakthrough, the “cessation of hostilities” agreement does not take effect for a week, at a time when Assad’s government is poised to win its biggest victory of the war with the backing of Russian air power.
Washington (AFP) – A US Hellfire missile has turned up in Cuba after going missing in a fiasco that has left American officials worried the technology may be shared with China, Russia or North Korea, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Though the missile was not carrying a warhead, the alarming diversion while it was in transit from Europe has spurred US investigators to probe whether its arrival on the communist island was the result of criminal activity or merely a series of mistakes, according to the newspaper.
And despite a historic thaw in ties with Cuba over the past year, Washington has been unsuccessful in its push to get the missile back, the WSJ said, citing unnamed sources.
It reported that American officials were not concerned that Cuba would take apart the Hellfire — an air-to-ground missile often carried by helicopters — but were worried that Havana would share the technology with US rivals China and Russia, as well as North Korea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has used crude language in a furious new attack on Turkey over the downing of a Russian combat jet last month.
The incident on the Syria-Turkey border was a “hostile act” but Russia was “not the country” to run away, he told his annual news conference.
“The Turks”, he said, had “decided to lick the Americans in a certain place”.
There was, he said, a “creeping Islamisation of Turkey that would have Ataturk rolling in his grave”.
The remark appeared to be aimed at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose AKP party, with its Islamist roots, has been accused of seeking to dismantle the secular state founded by Kemal Ataturk.
ANKARA/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on Tuesday after repeated warnings over air space violations, but Moscow said it could prove the jet had not left Syrian air space.
It was the first time a NATO member’s armed forces have downed a Russian or Soviet military aircraft since the 1950s and Russian and Turkish assets fell on fears of an escalation between the former Cold War enemies.
A Kremlin spokesman said it was a “very serious incident” but that it was too early to draw conclusions.
Footage from private Turkish broadcaster Haberturk TV showed the warplane going down in flames in a woodland area, a long plume of smoke trailing behind it. The plane went down in area known by Turks as “Turkmen Mountain”, it said.
Moscow (AFP) – President Vladimir Putin on Monday eased restrictions on Russian companies working on Iranian enrichment sites as he travelled to Tehran for his first visit since 2007.
A decree Putin signed on Monday enables Russian firms to help modify centrifuges at the Fordo enrichment site and help Tehran redesign its Arak heavy water reactor.
Russian companies can now also carry out activities linked to Iranian exports of enriched uranium of more than 300 kilograms in exchange for the supplies of natural uranium to Iran, the Kremlin decree said.
Secret design plans of a huge Russian nuclear torpedo were accidentally broadcast on two Kremlin-controlled television stations during ordinary news bulletins.
During a piece reporting a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his military high command, the camera cut away to a general staring at plans of the torpedo system, in which the name, basic layout and capabilities are clearly visible.
The document, which was on screen for several seconds, shows drawings and descriptions of a weapon labelled as the “Ocean Multi-purpose System ‘Status 6’” — a very large, self-propelled torpedo carrying an exceptionally powerful nuclear warhead.
“It looks like a classic bit of Russian asymmetric warfare – you have a strong propaganda message that says you’re doing one thing while in fact you are doing something completely different and when challenged you just flatly deny it,” Philip Hammond told Reuters in an interview in Manchester.
He said Britain had held discussions with Russia but kept on getting the same response – that Moscow was attacking Islamic State militants in Syria.
“You try talking to the Russians,” he said. “They just keep repeating their position – that is by the way also the Iranian position – and it is just incredible.”
He said that Britain needed “absolute clarity” that Assad would not be part of Syria’s future.
“That’s not some random bee in the bonnet that I’ve got; it’s that without that commitment we will never get the broad spectrum of Syrian opposition groups to sit down and agree around a table how we take forward the discussion about Syria’s future,” he said.
Hammond dismissed proposals put forward by Russia and Iran for elections, saying Syria was “a million miles away” from being able to hold a free and fair vote.
“In a country where 250,000 people have been killed and 12 million people have been displaced, half of them outside the country – how can you talk about free and fair elections?” he said.
One might get the impression that Putin spun world opinion with anti-IS rhetoric in order to prop up a brutal Syrian tyrant.
Beirut (AFP) – Syrian rebels who oppose both the regime and the Islamic State group have been hit hardest by Russian air strikes, showing Moscow’s determination to defend President Bashar al-Assad against all enemies, analysts say.
More than four years into Syria’s devastating war, Russian warplanes began air strikes there on Wednesday, saying they were targeting IS jihadists and “other terrorist groups”.
But Western officials said they had indications the Kremlin was concentrating its attacks on anti-Assad factions instead of jihadists.
Experts and a key monitoring group say that Moscow’s targets show it intends to strike all opposition groups opposed to Damascus — jihadist or otherwise — in an effort to save Assad.
“Moscow has entered Syria to hit not just Daesh, but all groups it regards as terrorists, including those supported by the Gulf monarchies and Turkey,” said Syria specialist Fabrice Balanche, using the Arabic acronym for the group.
So Russia is propping up Assad in Syria while selling billions of dollars of technology to Iran, Assad’s ally. Nice gig if you can get it.
So says Obama, despite evidence to the contrary. The world seems pretty comfortable standing by as Putin rebuilds the USSR.
“We cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is flagrantly violated,” Obama stated in his speech. “If that happens without consequence in Ukraine, it could happen to any nation gathered here today.”
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Iran has signed contracts worth $21 billion to buy satellite equipment and aircraft from Russia, Manouchehr Manteghi, the managing director of Iran Aviation Industries Organization, said in an interview with Russian agency Sputnik on Saturday.
Manteghi said the contracts had been signed at the MAKS-2015 air show in Russia last month.
Russia has stepped up its military involvement in Syria in recent weeks, with U.S. officials accusing Moscow of sending combat aircraft, tanks and other equipment to help the Syrian army.
Russia’s sudden military build-up this month in support of Assad and a refugee crisis that has spilled over from the region into Europe have lent new urgency to attempts to resolve the Syria conflict.
The new U.S. tack on Syria could bring together Russia, Saudi Arabia and countries such as Turkey and Qatar, which support Syrian opposition groups.
U.S.-Russian relations have slumped to a post-Cold War low over the Ukraine crisis, though the two sides shares concerns about the threat posed by Islamic State, while disagreeing on the approach.
(CNN)Iraq says it has reached a deal to share intelligence with Russia, Iran and Syria in the fight against ISIS militants.
The announcement on Saturday from the Iraqi military cited “the increasing concern from Russia about thousands of Russian terrorists committing criminal acts within ISIS.”
The news comes amid U.S. concerns about Russia’s recent military buildup in Syria and would appear to confirm American suspicions of some kind of cooperation between Baghdad and Moscow.
So Russia and Iran are helping Assad kill or export anyone who opposes him and our response is to accept the refugees. Gotcha.
BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian military has recently started using new types of air and ground weapons supplied by Russia, a Syrian military source told Reuters on Thursday, underlining growing Russian support for Damascus that is alarming the United States.
“The weapons are highly effective and very accurate, and hit targets precisely,” the source said in response to a question about Russian support. “We can say they are all types of weapons, be it air or ground.”
The source said the army had been trained in the use of the weapons in recent months and was now deploying them, declining to give further details other than saying they were “new types.”
Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Thursday Russia had provided new weapons and trained Syrian troops how to use them, without saying when or naming any specific systems.
So the Russians and Iranians are supporting the tyrannical Assad regime and forcing a massive humanitarian crisis. And our response is to give Iran nukes. Got it.
Washington (CNN)America’s top diplomat called his Russian counterpart Wednesday to warn that Moscow’s military buildup of troops in Syria could escalate the bloody conflict there that has engulfed the region for more than four years.
The U.S. has been watching Russia’s movement of military personnel with concern for several days, though the Foreign Ministry only confirmed the buildup Wednesday.
There are “Russian military experts in Syria who are instructing (the Syrians) on the use of the military systems being delivered” to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close Moscow ally, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
Russia “has long been supplying arms and military equipment to Syria in accordance with bilateral contracts,” she said.
At least they are doing it with American weapons. It’s a shame that they have to do it because they can’t rely on American support in the face of Russian aggression.
Warsaw wants to buy the Patriots because it is concerned about Moscow placing missiles in Kaliningrad that borders northern Poland, the BBC’s Adam Easton in Warsaw reports.
Poland currently has no defence against such weapons.
The missile deal – which could be worth about $7bn (£4.7bn) – is the largest in Polish history, our correspondent says.
It is part of Poland’s plans to spend $35bn to modernise its military over the next eight years.
In a rare move, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that a letter from Putin would be read out to the gathering in Egypt, where Arab leaders discussed an array of regional crises, including conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya.
“We support the Arabs’ aspirations for a prosperous future and for the resolution of all the problems the Arab world faces through peaceful means, without any external interference,” Putin said in the letter.
His comments triggered a sharp attack from Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.
“He speaks about the problems in the Middle East as though Russia is not influencing these problems,” he told the summit right after the letter was read out.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia have been cool over Moscow’s support for Assad, whom Riyadh opposes. The civil war between Assad’s forces and rebels has cost more than 200,000 lives in four years.
“They speak about tragedies in Syria while they are an essential part of the tragedies befalling the Syrian people, by arming the Syrian regime above and beyond what it needs to fight its own people,” Prince Saud said.
“I hope that the Russian president corrects this so that the Arab world’s relations with Russia can be at their best level.”
The Saudi rebuke may have been awkward for summit host Egypt, which depends heavily on billions of dollars in support from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab allies, but has also improved ties with Moscow.
