Putin rules out using ground troops in Syria
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PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin said yesterday that Russia would not deploy ground troops to Syria, where it has been conducting airstrikes against what it says are Islamic State targets.
“We are not planning on doing this, and our Syrian friends know about this,” Putin said in an interview broadcast on the Rossiya-1 television channel.
Putin last month received parliamentary approval to launch an air campaign in the war-torn country, but authorities have staunchly denied they would send any ground troops.
Using modern jets and older Soviet aircraft, Russia has bombed command posts and training camps of “radical terrorists,” backing a ground offensive by the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Putin said the Russian operation’s objective was to “stabilize the legitimate authorities and create conditions for finding a political compromise.”
Speaking of the weaponry used in the strikes — including cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea at targets more than 1,500 kilometers away — Putin dismissed the idea that Russia was in an “arms race” with the West.
“This is not about an arms race,” he said. “This is about the fact that modern weapons are improving, changing. In other countries, this is happening even faster than here. This is why we have to keep up.”
The Russian defense ministry said yesterday that its air force had struck 63 targets in Syria in the previous 24 hours, destroying a terrorist command post and several defensive positions and ammunition depots.
“Su-34, Su-24M and Su-25SM planes carried out 64 sorties from the Hmeimim airbase against 63 targets in the provinces of Hama, Latakia, Idlib and Raqa,” the ministry said.
Putin brushed off criticism by the US-led coalition that the Russian air force was not providing it with sufficient advance notice prior to conducting strikes. “I want to draw attention to the fact that nobody has ever warned us in the planning and beginning of operations of this kind,” Putin said. “But we did.”
Defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the Russian side had noted progress in its negotiations with the Pentagon on preventing accidents in Syrian airspace, where a US-led coalition is leading a separate bombing campaign.
Russia said its campaign was rattling IS fighters, claiming that radio intercepts showed their “growing panic.”
The defense ministry said that IS fighters were running low on arms, ammunition and fuel, leading them to abandon their combat positions for the country’s east and northeast.
Syrian troops backed by Russian airstrikes advanced against insurgents in the center of the country yesterday.
The fighting was on multiple fronts in the northern part of Hama province and the nearby rebel-held Idlib province. A Syrian official said troops seized the Hama village of Tak Sukayk. It was the second village in the area captured by the government since it launched a ground offensive on September 30.
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