Russian Air Campaign - 2015
President Vladimir Putin on 30 September 2015 secured parliament's unanimous backing to launch air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria, paving the way for imminent Russian military intervention in its closest Middle East ally. The upper house of parliament backed military action by 162 votes to zero. The move, which set the stage for Russia's biggest play in the region since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, was announced as Syrian government warplanes conducted heavy strikes in Homs province and the United States and its allies struck Islamic State targets.
Western officials on 30 September 2015 questioned whether the Russian airstrikes actually targeted the Islamic State militants. CNN quoted a senior US administration official as saying a Russian strike near the city of Homs had "no strategic purpose" in terms of combat, which "shows they are not there to go after ISIL." That's another acronym for the group. Likewise, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in New York that, "as we understand, these weren’t zones that were controlled" by the militants. He called for the targets of the Russian raids to be verified.
Satellite images released in September 2015 by IHS Jane’s showed what appeared to be Russian construction at the Istamo weapons storage complex and the Al-Sanobar military complex, both to the north of the Bassem al-Assad airbase.
NATO's top official warned Russia on 05 October 2015 to avoid another “unacceptable” crossover into Turkish airspace as Moscow widened its airstrikes in Syria to back the country’s embattled government. The sharp rhetoric from NATO’s secretary general — two days after Turkish warplanes confronted a Russian aircraft — underscored the clear divides between Russia and the West over Syria, and the higher stakes for the military alliance after Moscow began aerial attacks a few days earlier.
A Russian warplane violated Turkish airspace near the border with Syria, prompting Ankara to scramble two F-16 jets to intercept it and summon Moscow's ambassador in protest, the Foreign Ministry said on 05 October 2015. Turkey, which has the second-largest army in NATO, said the Russian jet entered Turkish airspace south of the Hatay region on 03 October 2015.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the short-term entry into the Turkish airspace of a Russian military aircraft involved in operations in the Syrian Arab Republic. "On Saturday, October 3, after the completion of the plan of combat flight, when maneuvering over the mountains and forests to return to the airfield" Hmeymim "Russian military aircraft Su-30 made a brief, a few seconds, set at the Turkish airspace," - said at a briefing spokesman of the military department, Major-General Igor Konashenkov.
A top Russian lawmaker said on 05 October 2015 "a unit of Russian volunteers," including battle hardened veterans who fought in eastern Ukraine, may join Syrian government troops fighting Islamic State extremists and other terrorists in that country. Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, in comments to Russia's Interfax-AVN news agency, said Russian involvement on the ground in Syria is "likely." Komoyedov, the head of the Russian parliament's defense committee, did not suggest a timetable for any Russian involvement, and there was no immediate comment from the Kremlin by late Monday. The lawmaker's remarks came in response to unconfirmed media reports that Russian volunteers already have been spotted fighting alongside the Syrian army.
By 08 October 2015 Russia was adding to its barrage on rebel forces in Syria, sending in more firepower in the form of an additional Russian battalion armed with advanced tanks and artillery while punching ahead on the ground in central and western parts of the country with an Iranian-trained force that could number 10,000 or more.
Most of the gains from the Russian-backed ground offensive came in the northwestern part of Syria, where Russian airpower supported a mix of forces loyal to Assad along with some Shi'ite militiamen from Iraq and Iranian forces. As pro-Assad forces moved further inland, however, contesting rebel forces in and around cities like Aleppo, Homs and Hama, they seemed to have stalled.
The European Council on October 12, 2015 called for Russia to "immediately" end military attacks in Syria that do not target Islamic State or other U.N.-designated terrorist organizations. European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Russia's military action in Syria is a "game-changer" that has "some very worrying elements."
By October 15, 2015 Russia appeared to have at least doubled the number of military personnel on the ground in Syria ahead of an expected pro-regime offensive to retake the city of Aleppo. The latest U.S. estimates put the total number of Russian troops at about 3,000.
Word of the Russian build-up followed the opening salvos of a ground campaign in which forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have teamed with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah fighters and Shi’ite militias from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to battle rebel forces along a northward line, extending from the cities of Homs and Hama to Idlib.
Speaker of the People's Council of Syria Mohammad Jihad al-Laham conveyed compliments from the country’s President Bashar al-Assad to the Russian government for its “position of principles, which meets the standards of international law and UN Charter.” In the space of just two weeks, Russia — along with the Syrian armed forces — has achieved more in the course of their joint military operation against the self-proclaimed Islamic State terror group than the US-led alliance, which launched their airstrikes over a year ago, al-Laham claimed at a meeting with Russia’s Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko.
By 18 October 2015 the Syrian army, backed by Russian forces, had successfully pushed back militants from four key regions in Southwest Aleppo. Syrian military officials reported army and popular forces, backed by Russian air support, took control of southeastern territories of the northern province of Aleppo after killing and wounding dozens of terrorists in the liberation operation.
The Russian Embassy in Syria refuted media reports about three Russian soldiers or “volunteers fighting in Syria” killed by a militant shelling. “We have no information about the alleged deaths of three Russians or “Russian soldiers” in Syria, which was reported by Reuters. It looks like one more stove piping,” the Russian Embassy told TASS news agency. On 20 October 2015 Reuters reported about at least three Russian soldiers killed and several more wounded after their position was shelled in the province of Latakia, citing a senior pro-government military source.
The Wall Street Journal reported 24 October 2015, that Russia had sent a few dozen special-operations troops to Syria in recent weeks, Russian and Western officials say, redeploying the elite units from Ukraine as the Kremlin shifts its focus to supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the fate of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should be decided by the Syrian people, and that keeping him in power is not crucial to Moscow's objectives. "We have never said Assad's staying in power is a principled aspect" of Russian policy on Syria, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Ekho Moskvy radio 03 November 2015. Instead, she stressed that the preservation of a functioning government in the Syrian state is central to ending more than four years of civil war.
Within hours after Moscow concluded that terrorists took down the jetliner, Putin launched massive strikes 17 November 2015 on Raqqa, the Islamic State's self-proclaimed capital in northern Syria. Russia said that it had doubled the scale of its attacks on Syria. The latest airstrikes were “the most intense” since world powers led by the US started targeting the group. Russia conducted 34 cruise missile strikes and deployed long-range Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers from its bases to hit ISIL's de-facto capital of Raqqa as well as other targets. Russia planned 127 sorties on 206 targets in the first 24 hours of the new campaign, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. This marked a truly historic moment for the Russian Air Force. Now, the Bear and the Blackjack had taken part in an actual battle for the first time in their history. The aircraft launched a total of 34 airborne cruise missiles destroying 13 key targets.
Around 500 fuel tanker vehicles transporting illegal oil from Syria to Iraq for processing have been destroyed by Russia’s Air Forces, the General Staff said 18 November 2015 . “In recent years, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and other extremist groups have organized the operations of the so-called ‘pipeline on wheels’ on the territories they control,” Russian General Staff spokesman Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov said.
The spokesman displayed images showing convoys comprised of hundreds of vehicles transporting oil to back his assertion. “In just the first few days, our aviation has destroyed 500 fuel tanker trucks, which greatly reduced illegal oil export capabilities of the militants and, accordingly, their income from oil smuggling,” Kartapolov stressed.
A total of 69 warplanes and ten warships took part in Russia's counterterrorism operation in Syria. Russian forces conducted 143 sorties daily. Russian aircraft made 522 sorties launching 101 air- and seaborne cruise missiles against enemy targets and dropping 1,400 bombs in the first four days of the second phase of the campaign in Syria. As many as 826 ISIL targets were destroyed.
Russian pilots and technical experts at the airbase in Latakia sent a message to militants via "priority airmail," the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Twitter. The words 'For Paris' and 'For our people' can be seen inscribed on bombs which were later dropped on ISIL targets.
Russian jets carried out 394 sorties from the Hmeymim airbase in Syria in the past three days, base commander Alexey Maksimtsev told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a 20 November 2015 Defense Ministry briefing. The airstrikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces helped the Syrian Army advance in all directions, with the most progress made outside Aleppo and in the mountainous area of Latakia, Major General Alexei Maksimtsev, Commander of the Russia Air Force Unit at the Hmeymim air base, reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Airstrikes targeted 731 militant command points in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, and outside Palmyra."
Turkish officials complained that Russia bombed rebel Turkmen villages in the border area to support its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But the Russians behave as if everyone in Syria who is not associated with Assad is to be considered a terrorist.
The Russian General Staff, voiced a number of measures that Russia would implement after the shoot-down of the Su-24M on 24 November 2015. To the coast of Syria approached the missile cruiser "Moskva", equipped with air defense system "Bastion" - the Marine version of the S-300, S-400 predecessor. Russian planes are to be sent in combat missions with Hmeymim airbases with fighter escort. In addition, the military promised to destroy any target that would pose a potential threat to Russian aviation in Syria. The Russian Air Force base in Latakia will be reinforced with S-400 SAM system, which will soon be deployed there, Russia's Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said.
Russian airstrikes in Aleppo’s Azaz area on 26 November 2015 struck a Turkish aid convoy delivering supplies to Turkmen refugees, killing seven drivers and leaving 20 trucks in flames. Russian warplanes had been conducting airstrikes in the region for days. The Turkmen Mountain region near Azaz was the target of Syrian government offensive under the cover of Russian air strikes.
A senior member of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has underlined the government’s determination to supply “meaningful and qualitative” support to the Turkmens in Syria that will ensure their “material and moral security.”
“Everybody should know that Turkey’s support for the Turkmens is meaningful and qualitative,” Ömer Çelik, a spokesperson for the AKP, told reporters late on 25 November 2015.
“We are standing by the Turkmens in every way. What I mean when I say ‘meaningful and qualitative support’ also includes their being equipped with some resources that will ensure their material and moral security, that will ensure their resistance against all kinds of threats against the existence of the Turkmens and that will allow them to oppose, in the required way, attacks on their region, as in the attack against Türkmendagi. There is no need to list it item by item in any way; Turkey is standing by the Turkmens materially and morally and with abstract and concrete resources,” Çelik said after a Central Executive Board (MYK) meeting chaired by AKP leader and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree 28 November 2015 imposing a package of economic sanctions against Turkey following its downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber in Syria. The measures include banning several Turkish organizations and the import of certain goods.
Discussing the Su-24 matter with world leaders during the Paris climate talks, on 30 November 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow had evidence that the Su-24 was shot down by Turkey to protect oil deliveries of the ISIL terrorist group, also known as Daesh, and that oil from IS-controlled fields is being exported to Turkey on an industrial scale. "We have every reason to believe that the decision to shoot down our aircraft was dictated by the desire to ensure the safety of supply routes of oil to Turkey, to the ports where they are shipped in tankers," Putin said.
In an interview with Radio Sputnik, Middle East analyst Stanislav Tarasov noted that "Erdogan's family is directly involved in the incident," and suggested that "we could soon learn that President Erdogan himself is directly linked to ISIL." Erdogan's family was reportedly involved in Daesh's oil smuggling business.
Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov accused Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and his family from personally benefitting from the trade. "According to available information," Antonov said, "the highest level of the political leadership of the country, President Erdogan and his family, are involved in this criminal business." He was speaking to a room of foreign military attaches and Russian media on 02 December 2015. "We know the price of Erdogan's words," Antonov continued, in response to the Turkish president's denial and promise to resign if it were proved true. Turkish leaders "won't acknowledge anything even if their faces are smeared with the stolen oil."
“The income of this terrorist organization was about $3 million per day. After two months of Russian airstrikes their income was about $1.5 million a day,” Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy said 02 December 2015. Over two months, Russia’s airstrikes hit 32 oil complexes, 11 refineries, 23 oil pumping stations, Rudskoy said, adding that the Russian military had also destroyed 1,080 trucks carrying oil products. “These [airstrikes] helped reduce the trade of the oil illegally extracted on the Syrian territory by almost 50 percent.”
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, in his annual “state of the nation” speech to Russia’s parliament on 03 December 2015, said "We do not plan to, and will not, saber-rattle. But, if someone thinks that, having committed a vile war crime — the murder of our people — they will get off with [an import ban on] tomatoes or a few restrictions in the construction industry or other sectors, they are profoundly mistaken. We’ll long remind them of what they did. An they’ll long regret their deed. We know what needs to be done."
On December 09, 2015 a US official added to the criticism of Russia's military campaign in Syria, saying Wednesday only 30 percent of Russian airstrikes have targeted Islamic State militants. Western nations had accused Russia of focusing its strikes on Syrian opposition fighters in support of its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, a charge Russian officials denied. US envoy Brett McGurk, who met with US and Iraqi military leaders in Baghdad 09 December 2015, said the other 70 percent of Russia's airstrikes in Syria had hit opposition groups.
Russian combat aircraft have carried out more than 4,200 missions against terrorist targets since the start of the air operation in Syria on September 30, the Russian General Staff said 15 December 2015.
"Since September 30, the Russian air group has carried out a total of 4,201 combat missions, including 145 sorties by strategic and long-range bombers," Lt. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said in a statement. According to him, the Russian Air Force was conducting airstrikes on the main Daesh facilities. Russian jets destroyed over 1,200 fuel trucks carrying Daesh oil in Syria.
Russian long-range bombers have flown 145 combat sorties to Syria since the Russian anti-terrorist campaign started there on September 30, Deputy Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Anatoly Konovalov said in an interview to Ekho Moskvy radio station18 December 2015. They dropped over 1,500 bombs and fired about 20 cruise missiles of several types. Some problems were revealed with air-to-surface cruise missiles, but the Russian military will soon fix them, the general added. The crews of Tu-22 (Blinder) and Tu-160 (Blackjack) strategic bombers took off from airfields in Russia and spent 16 hours in the air to fulfill their combat tasks in Syria, he added.
"It was extraordinary and new how the Tu-160s performed their sortie from our northern airfield of Olenegorsk, flying around Europe, entering the Mediterranean and by carrying out missile launches at IS targets in Syria. Notably, those targets were hit with high precision,” he added. Olenegorsk is in Russia’s northwestern Murmansk Region. The Tu-22s carried out the bombings, while cruise missiles of both new and old modification were fired by Tu-160 aircraft, Konovalov said.
Amnesty International added to the criticism of Russia's air campaign in Syria with a new report December 23, 2015 saying the bombings have killed at least 200 civilians in Homs, Idlib and Aleppo provinces. Amnesty also said it had evidence Russia used banned cluster munitions and unguided bombs. The rights group said the Russian airstrikes have hit homes and hospitals, and that its research showed there were no fighters or military targets nearby. "Some Russian airstrikes appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military target and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians," Amnesty Middle East and North Africa Program Director Philip Luther said. "Such attacks may amount to war crimes."
The Amnesty International report on civilian deaths caused by Russian airstrikes in Syria consists of "fakes and cliches", the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said. "We have studied the report — again, there was nothing precise and new published there. The same cliches and fakes that we have often disproved earlier. The report if full of such expressions as 'presumably Russian airstrikes', 'possible international law violations' and so on. Sheer assumptions without any proof."
The Kremlin’s help on Syria, even while its bombing continues, is seen in Moscow as a victory, ending much of its diplomatic isolation over its actions in Ukraine — though sanctions against Russia were extended by the European Union. “There is the general feeling here, I would say, among the political and military elites, that Russia now has the competitive edge over the West, that it is imposing its agenda,” said Victor Mizin, a political scientist with the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces told about the results of operation held by Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria. On 25 December 2015. Since September 30, the Russian air group in Syria had performed 5240 combat sorties including 145 ones of the strategic missile-carrying and long-range bomber aviation.
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