Well they just took more casualties than could be easily covered up - and it comes just before the Russian elections next month.
Earlier, the Russian spokesperson said 3 Russians killed or something. Someone is lying and I don’t know whom, I have my suspicions.
It is looking like the force that attacked the SDF in oil field East of Deir ez Zour was primarily Russian. That is a big change from what had been happening, and an indicator that it was viewed as a strategic move by the Russians, worthy of great risk.
It is a public debacle in Russia, and they are lying as hard as they can about it.
Again, I don’t know if it is true or not but the article came out “Using Mercenaries so it looks like they are losing fewer troops”: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/msn/russia-is-using-mercenaries-to-make-it-look-like-its-losing-fewer-troops-in-syria/ar-BBJ69Kv
it’s just sort of “accepted” practice and culture in Russia not to expect nor raise a stir for truthful information on the part of the press or government.
Evolving internet and information landscape changes a bit of that mentality though...
As far as I can tell the Russians were not regular Russian troops (Putin troops, so to speak), but contract soldiers, aka mercenaries. Some of these soldiers had been in the Ukraine before their commercial contract military company which hey were employed by accepted a Syrian contract. Russia is just beginning to regulate these companies.
From the article:
He said many of the injured had shrapnel in their bodies that was not showing up on X-rays, making treatment difficult. “The prognosis for most of the wounded is dismal,” he said.
“First of all the bombers attacked, and then they cleaned up using Apaches (U.S.-made attack helicopters),” Shabayev said, citing the wounded men he visited in hospital.
The aim was to test if the U.S.-led coalition would react. The force advanced to within less than 5 km (3 miles) of the SDF and American positions, he said.
He said that the U.S.-led forces, in line with procedure agreed with the Russians, warned Russian regular forces that they were preparing to strike. He does not know if the warning was passed on to the contractors.
“The warning was 20 minutes beforehand, in that time it was not feasible to turn the column around,” said the source.
He said once the strikes began, the contractors did not return fire because they believed that would provoke even more strikes from the U.S.-led coalition.
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All of the hospitals in St. Pets and Moscow are full according to another report.
“Well they just took more casualties than could be easily covered up”
I guess the mobile crematories haven’t been deployed to Syria?
The Russians may want to think twice about committing to another war in the Middle East. They need to refer to their debacle in Afghanistan!
What, US jets are now killing Russians???
I was told Trump is a Russian puppet and was elected with the help of “the Russians”.
Russia has very little ability to project force. France almost, but not quite none. UK used to be able to project a modicum of force, but the sun has set on the British. That’s about it, boys and girls. A U.S. President with a pair of balls can bring peace to the world if we don’t get hung up on “nation building.”
http://buchanan.org/blog/us-sucked-syrias-war-128732
Pat Buchanan has a good column, his latest. Pat was disappointing me for a while, so I don’t take everything he says as gospel but he’s usually a good read and often right.
He’s wised up some with this latest column. We will see.
He said once the strikes began, the contractors did not return fire because they believed that would provoke even more strikes from the U.S.-led coalition.
Assad has been elected twice
But we treat him with less legitimacy than that clown Rocket Man in North Korea who we are willing to accept if he de- nukes
Go figure
We on the other hand are in Syria as occupiers to pick and choose among islamic radicals like AlQaeda to try to come up an army - any army- to join the Kurds who are the only real fighters aside from radicals - and to oppose the secular Assad because Israel and the Saudi want him gone because he made a strategic decision to ally with Iran as did his old man before him
Iran willing to kill islamist radicals Since quite a few Syrian shiites suffered mightily under ISIS and sunni radical militias
This is all grounds for us choosing a new Syrian government now that our ISIS experiment has hopefully been cleaned up for which we take no blame but full credit
Not that we would meddle in another country's elections or anything...
MORE dead, please, MUCH more, especially of Iranians and Turks. Let the blood flow.
I don’t care how many Russians are dead. I just don’t want to hear about one America’s finest dead for this POS country Syria.
Good shooting.
"He said many of the injured had shrapnel in their bodies that was not showing up on X-rays, making treatment difficult. “The prognosis for most of the wounded is dismal,” he said."
Mr. Putin. There’s a new Sherriff in town. No bowing, no apologies, no red lines................just dead Russians if you f with our guys!