Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Russia's Most Syrian Adventure #65

Much has happened.  It appears the Assadites are winning.  They have supposedly relieved the siege of the Shiite towns of Nubul and Zahraa, taken other towns and cut off the rebel supply lines from Aleppo.  The only place where the rebels seem to be doing even ok is against IS/Daesh.  

Russian troops have been shuffled hither and yon, with various Russians geolocating themselves, on purpose or inadvertently, through the Russian social media site VK.  The Russian air force is conducting just under 200 airstrikes per day.

Russia has deployed its latest Su-35S variant to Syria.  This is the most modern fighter the Russians have short of the in development PAK-FA.  Russia has no reason, as far as they are concerned, to stop their air strikes in Syria.

The British are claiming the Russians are trying to carve out a mini state for Assad in Syria.  However, given the recent advances, it might not just be a mini state, but trying to help him retake the entire country.

The Russians had planned to do a treaty allowed inspection flight over Turkey.  This flight has been banned by Ankara and the Russians are angry.

Making things even more complicated, the Turks apparently shelled across the border into Syria.

The peace talks seem to be in jeopardy.  The opposition pulled out of meetings yesterday.  The Russians have stated there's no real progress on declaring what entities are valid terrorist targets or not.  The Russians are supportive of hardliners attending the talks.  And the UN is warning that everything that can be done, should be done to save the talks.

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