Friday, December 22, 2017

Not concealing anything

Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu at military strategy conference in Moscow today, speaking immediately after Vladimir Putin --

Priceless combat experience in Syria was received by more than 48 thousand military men of the Russian army, of which more than 14 thousand were awarded with state awards. 80 percent of the operational-tactical crews and 90 percent of the army aviation have from 100 to 120 sorties. The long-range aviation crews received practice of striking at important militant targets. In total, the Aviation and Space Forces of Russia carried out 34 thousand sorties during two years. For the first time, pilots of ship aviation from the heavy aircraft carrying cruiser Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov participated in combat operations, 420 combat sorties were performed by them. High-precision long-range missiles Caliber, X-101, Iskander, Tochka-U, X-55 and others were used for the most important targets of the militants. Ships and submarines inflicted 100 blows, and strategic aircraft - 66 shots at a range of 500 to 1,5 thousand kilometers. Each missile struck the assigned target.

And that's not even the end of his list. Russia's intervention in Syria was a massive military operation, glossed over in gullible media accounts which made it sound like sporadic technical and mostly air and long-range artillery support. Despite yet another Russian announcement of a scale down, their operations continue, both directly and in support of the Assad regime, as manifested in the continuing humanitarian crisis in Ghouta (the scene of the first of the large scale regime chemical weapons attacks).

Note to readers: you could free up a lot of time in your life between mid-June and mid-July by not watching the FIFA 2018 World Cup, taking place in Russia. 

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