Russian military jets and US destroyer clash in Black Sea

firstfridays · Jul 19, 2015

Russian military jets and US destroyer clash in Black Sea

[video=youtube_share;2TzWCFtRpek]http://youtu.be/2TzWCFtRpek[/video]

Russian military jets and US destroyer clash in Black Sea 'posing danger to stability'

Russia has scrambled military jets in response to an American navy destroyer which, it has been reported in Russian media, was acting aggressively in the Black Sea.

waltky · Sep 19, 2015

Putin movin' Russian air force into Syria...

Russian fighter jets in Syria raise serious questions, US says
Sep 19, 2015, The United States is disturbed by Russia's movement of tactical aircraft to Syria, US secretary of state John Kerry said Saturday, acknowledging that the jets could pose a threat to American and allied military forces.

US officials say Russia moved a small number of fighter jets to a base in Syria on Friday, hours after US defence secretary Ash Carter talked with Russia defence minister Sergei Shoigu in the first military contacts between the two countries in some time. "Clearly, the presence of aircraft with air-to-air combat capacity ... raises serious questions," Kerry said, responding to a question after meeting with British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond. Russia says its recent military buildup in Syria is designed to fight the Islamic State group. While ISIS lacks an air force, the Russian aircraft are capable of striking ground targets and providing close air support for ground forces, according to a US intelligence official who was not authorized to discuss military matters and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Russia's military moves in Syria are its first major expeditionary force deployment outside the former Soviet Union since the war in Afghanistan, the official said. Kerry said the military-to-military talks with the Russians are designed to make sure there are no incidents between Russian and American forces. The discussions also amount to a tacit acceptance of the Russian buildup, after weeks of warnings from Washington against any Russian escalation in Syria.

In another apparent concession, Kerry stated explicitly that the US could accept a resolution to the Syrian war that allowed President Bashar Assad to remain in place for a time before departing, as the US long has wanted. "We're not being doctrinaire about the specific date or time - we're open," Kerry said, adding that Assad doesn't have to leave "on day one, or month one, or whatever". He later added that the US considered Assad a magnet for the foreign fighters who are filling the Islamic State group's ranks. "So there's a lack of logic," Kerry said, for the Russians to say "they are bringing in more equipment to shore up Assad at the same time they say they are going after" the militants.

Meantime, a Syrian rebel group claims it fired rockets at a coastal air base said to be used by Russian troops. In a video posted on Friday, members of the Islam Army warned the Russians that they will not enjoy peace in Syria. The fighters are then are seen loading and launching multiple rockets from a mountainous area. Kerry and Hammond said they also discussed the situations in Yemen, Libya and Ukraine. Kerry also urged restraint in response to days of clashes around the Jerusalem holy site known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount. "All of us join together in urging everybody to keep the calm," Kerry said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...us-questions-US-says/articleshow/49026805.cms
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Russia building airstrip in Syria's Latakia, report says
Sep 14, 2015, Russia is building an airstrip in the Syrian regime's stronghold Latakia province, and has brought hundreds of technicians and military advisers to the site, a monitor said Sunday.

The claim comes as Washington accuses Moscow of a military build-up in Syria, where Russia has backed President Bashar al-Assad's regime against an uprising of more than four years. "Russian forces are building a long runway capable of accommodating large aircraft near the Hmaymeen military airport in Latakia province," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The monitor, which relies on a network of civilian, military and medical sources inside Syria, said "the Russians are preventing Syrians, whether military or civilian, from entering the area where they are building the runway". "In recent weeks, military airplanes arrived in Hmaymeen carrying military equipment and hundreds of Russian military advisers and technicians," the group said.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said sources also reported that Russia was enlarging the Hamadiyeh airport in Tartus province, another regime stronghold that is south of Latakia. The airport is currently used by aircraft that spray crops with pesticide. Russia is a staunch ally of the regime in Damascus and maintains a naval facility in Tartus province. It has made no secret of its support for Assad's government, including continuing weapons supplies, but has rejected claims of a recent military build-up inside Syria.

But US officials this week said two tank-landing ships had arrived recently at the Tartus base, and that at least four transport flights had landed an airport in Latakia. They also reported the arrival of dozens of Russian naval infantry and the installation of temporary housing sufficient for "hundreds of people" at Latakia airport, along with portable air traffic control equipment. On Friday, Cypriot officials said Russia had issued an alert for Cyprus to divert aircraft next week because it is planning military exercises off the Syrian coast.

And on Saturday, Syrian state media reported the arrival of two Russian planes at the airport in Latakia, saying they were carrying humanitarian aid. Syrian state media sporadically reported the arrival of Russian humanitarian aid, but the flights were the first mentioned by official news organisations since the claims of a military build-up. More than 240,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-Latakia-report-says/articleshow/48960233.cms
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waltky · Oct 11, 2015

Russia has big ambitions, growing capabilities...

U.S. vs. Russia: What a war would look like between the world's most fearsome militaries
5 Oct.`15 - Vladimir Putin's brazen moves in Syria and Ukraine raise new questions about America's contingency plans[/b]

Early on the morning of Sept. 30, a Russian three-star general approached the American embassy in Baghdad, walked past a wall of well-armed Marines, to deliver face-to-face a diplomatic demarche to the United States. His statement was blunt: The Russia military would begin air strikes in neighboring Syria within the hour — and the American military should clear the area immediately. It was a bout of brinksmanship between two nuclear-armed giants that the world has not seen in decades, and it has revived Cold War levels of suspicion, antagonism and gamesmanship.

Toe to toe, a conventional war between the U.S. and Russia would be no contest. But few believe any conflict would play out like that.

With the launch of airstrikes in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated a proxy war with the U.S., putting those nation's powerful militaries in support of opposing sides of the multipolar conflict. And it's a huge gamble for Moscow, experts say. "This is really quite difficult for them. It's logistically complex. The Russians don't have much in the way of long-range power projection capability," said Mark Galeotti, a Russian security expert at New York University.

Since its annexation of Crimea in early 2014, Russia has steadily expanded its military presence in the region. In response, the U.S. and its NATO allies are working to build, train and equip Ukrainian forces.

Moscow's military campaign in Syria is relying on supply lines that require air corridors through both Iranian and Iraqi air space. The only alternatives are naval supply lines running from Crimea, requiring a passage of up to 10 days round-trip. How long that can be sustained is unclear. That and other questions about Russian military capabilities and objectives are taking center stage as Putin shows a relentless willingness to use military force in a heavy-handed foreign policy aimed at restoring his nation's stature as a world power. In that quest, he has raised the specter of resurgent Russian military might — from Ukraine to the Baltics, from Syria to the broader Middle East.

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As Russia and Iran flex muscle in Syria, the U.S. is short on options
Monday, 5 October 2015 - Across the Middle East, America’s traditional allies are watching with disbelief as Russia and Iran mount a show of force in Syria, and they are wondering how it will end.

The U.S.-led coalition, created to combat the jihadi threat from ISIS in Syria and Iraq, has been wrong footed by the Russian jets pounding the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and by an influx of Iranian forces. The question on everyone’s mind is: will the United States and its European and regional Sunni allies intervene to stop President Vladimir Putin from reversing the gains made by mainstream Syrian rebels after more than four years of war?

Few are holding their breath. Many say, often with vehemence, that the current drama is the consequence of ongoing Western inaction and U.S. retreat at critical moments in an ever more uncontrollable conflict, whose regional dimensions are fast becoming global. Nobody in the Middle East is counting on U.S. President Barack Obama. The gloomy prediction of most is that a war that has killed at least a quarter of a million people and displaced half the Syrian population is about to get much, much worse. The conflict has taken a deadly trajectory throughout. It began as a popular uprising against Assad, part of the 'Arab Spring', then became a sectarian war with regional patrons such as Iran and Saudi Arabia backing their local proxies. Military interventions by Russia and Iran have pushed the war to the brink of a full-blown international conflict.

Faisal Al Yafai, chief commentator at the UAE-based newspaper, The National, recalled the words of David Petraeus, the U.S. general who led the “surge” of American military reinforcements into Iraq in 2007-08 - "Tell me how this ends". After the Russian "surge" into Syria, he said, "America and its allies now look like the only group without a plan". He believes the emerging military alliance between Russia and Assad’s other main backers – Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah – does have an idea of "how this ends". The same is true of ISIS, he said. The end for the Assad family, he argues, is its survival. For ISIS, it is to carve out and consolidate the caliphate it declared in large swathes of Syria and Iraq last year. But for Russia and Iran, it is "nothing less than the replacement of the U.S.-Israel axis with one of their own".

A new axisis
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Russian military jets and US destroyer clash in Black Sea

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waltky Well-Known Member

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Russian military jets and US destroyer clash in Black Sea

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