Solitudinem fecerunt,
pacem appelunt
Publius Gaius Cornelius Tacitus
Syria - Russian Intervention - 2017
On December 29, 2016, Putin announced the signing of three important documents. The first stipulated a ceasefire between the Syrian government and the armed opposition in Syria, the second listed various measures to be used to monitor the ceasefire regime, and the third noted a readiness to launch talks on the Syrian peace settlement. These documents were the result of two-month Turkish-mediated talks between the Russian Defence Ministry, leaders of the moderate Syrian opposition groups, and Damascus. A total of seven groups that were the core of the armed opposition, including some 60,000 militants, signed ceasefire agreements. The ceasefire entered into force across the country at midnight on December 30, 2016, with Russia, Turkey and Iran acting as its guarantors.
On November 21, 2017, Putin said at a meeting with Assad in Russia’s resort city of Sochi that the operation against militants in Syria was coming to an end. In turn, Assad said that the efforts of the Russian army had contributed to the preservation of Syrian statehood.
On 06 December 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the complete destruction of the jihadists along both banks of the Euphrates River. Mentioning the continued existence of isolated hotbeds of resistance, Putin said that on the whole, the Syrian and Russian operation in the area has ended with a complete "routing of the terrorists."
On 07 December 2017 the head of the Russian General Staff Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said the Russian Armed forces have fulfilled their objective of destroying the military forces of the Daesh terrorist group in Syria. "The task of destroying the Daesh militia in Syria by the Russian Armed Forces has been accomplished," Rudskoi said, speaking at a press briefing. The senior officer emphasized that to date, not a single settlement or district remains under the terrorist group's control in the country. However, small pockets of militant resistance may continue to be found, subject to destruction by Syrian government forces, he added. The last major concentrations of Daesh militants were defended by heavily-armed terrorists as well as mercenaries.
According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation as of November 7, more than 54,000 militants were killed, including more than 2,800 emigrants from Russia and 1,400 from the near abroad. More than 394 tanks and over 12,000 weapons and equipment have been destroyed by the Russian Air Force.
In total, according to official publications of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and representatives of regional authorities, the irretrievable combat losses of personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation during the military operation amounted to 39 people. Four of them were posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.
According to the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, since the beginning of the military operation, the air force of the Russian Air Force has carried out more than 30,000 sorties, inflicting about 92,000 air strikes. During the operation, the Russian Air and Space Forces attacked places of concentration of militants and their infrastructure, engaged in the delivery of humanitarian goods to the residents of Syria, and also "solved other, no less important tasks," recalled the head of the Defense Ministry.
The experience gained by the Russian Navy during the Mediterranean cruise of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, as well as Caliber fire on positions of terrorists in Syria from submarines and surface ships, has already been analyzed and introduced into the educational programs of Russian seamen.
The pilots of the Northern Fleet carried out 420 sorties, of which 117 - at night. They hit 1252 terrorist targets. For the first time the multifunctional air wing of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which includes Su-33, MiG-29K, deck-mounted helicopters Ka-52, Ka-27PL, Ka-27PS, Ka-29, was first tested in real conditions. allowed to fulfill the entire range of tasks in the airspace over the sea and land. A total of 402 combat sorties were carried out by naval aviation from the aircraft carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov.
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