Friday, November 20, 2015

Russia's Most Syrian Adventure #36



A Tu-160 with escort over Hama Province.

Russia claims to have flown 394 sorties and hit 731 targets in the last 72 hours.  I'm a bit confused with what they said yesterday, but ok. Russia and Syria have jointly hit eastern Syria where IS/Daesh is strongest.

Russian air strikes have killed at least 1300 people since their start.  Russia claims they have killed 600 rebels.

Russia has reinforced their air force in Syria with an additional 8 Su-34s and more Su-27s, but how many of the latter is unclear.

The Russians have been releasing edited video of their bombers doing carpet bombing and releasing cruise missiles.  It seems they didn't edit them enough: the release point for some of the cruise missiles has been geolocated as being in IRAN (in Russian).

The Russians have been complaining the French have been hitting oil infrastructure, property that was Assad's and Russia hopes will be after the war is done.  France has dismissed the Russian complaints.

Putin has said the initial phase of Russian intervention has not made enough progress and is now talking about the next phase of his operation.  What that is anyone can speculate on *cough*ground troops*cough*, but only Putin can say what it will be.

Russia requested Lebanon changes the flight paths of airliners coming to the country to accommodate the Russian navy's locations.  Lebanon has said no.

The head of the Russian National Security Council met with the head of French intelligence coordination.  Putin is going to meet with the Ayatollah.

Turkey has protested the Russian strikes in the Turkmen areas of Syria.

Russia's Duma is proposing new anti terrorism measures.


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