Russian military intervention and aid to Syria #12

...Russia’s defense minister has confirmed two were deployed for tests in Syria. However, they were there for just two days for combat and other tests...
...“There were two jets which were accompanied by laboratory aircraft, and planes which monitored the work of weapon systems.”...
...“I can tell you that the trial was successful; the planes returned home a week ago,” Shoigu added. “As for the photos which were published, I don’t know where they came from. The planes were inside hangars all the time [when parked].”...

JohninMK wrote:OK Mr Twitter stuff is unreliable. Put this in your pipe and smoke it.

eehnie wrote:

Isos wrote:It's written on the picture ...

Then it must be ISI, I imagine...

eehnie wrote:

JohninMK wrote:Yup its my picture taken when I was aboard one of my satellites last night. I used my old Instamatic or was it Polaroid. No it was the box Brownie.

Or was it the space station, can't really remember through the haze of Coke.

Coca Cola that is.

Stop being so petty and bloody childish, you are just destroying any reputation you had around here.

I see...

Then all this garbaje to avoid to say, to hide, you are posting israeli satellite images of a Russian Air base in Syria. If true, the images.

You are building instead a pretty reputation here...

Where has been this picture published exactly?

You know how is the people here with the sources... it would be interesting to have more information from you about who payed the pictures, whith which purpose... it would be interesting to know if the source is reliable or can be fake picture... If you convince not to some people of the reliability of the source, you are strongly exposed to the insults of Papadragon, SeigSoloyvov, Isos, Kinopsis and alike...

6] Do not post others work without citing it (English sources online must be linked)

PapaDragon wrote:

eehnie wrote:

Is your own picture? Source of the picture?

It is necessary to ask you always the same?

Several of us got together and made this in Microsoft Paint just to discredit you...  

eehnie wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

eehnie wrote:

Is your own picture? Source of the picture?

It is necessary to ask you always the same?

Several of us got together and made this in Microsoft Paint just to discredit you...  

See now who is discredited...

GarryB wrote:Gefest & T is the name of the companies that have developed the hardware... well technically they are called:

JSC "Hephaestus and T" and are located in Zhukovsky, Moscow region.

If you highlight and copy this link:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/СВП-24_(прицельно-навигационный_комплекс)

by clicking and highlighting the line and pressing the control button and the letter C and then open this page:

Yandex

and at the top of the page there is a text box... if you click inside and press control and V to paste the ru.wiki link and click the button next to the text box it will open the webpage and then translate it into english.

Gefest & T make a sighting an navigation system for a range of existing aircraft... the one for the Su-24 is called SVP-24. There are others for other aircraft including the Tu-22M3, the Su-33, the Su-25 etc etc etc.

Not all of the systems are in service, but they offer them as upgrades anyway.

(Note as you scroll down the page it will translate the text, so if it appears in Russian just wait a few seconds....)

The bombing navigation system can be applied to almost any aircraft, including helicopters and trainer aircraft... which presumably means it could also be adapted to transport aircraft too I think...  imagine a cheap bomber made of an An-12 or Il-214 that can carry 20 odd tons of bombs over thousands of kms and operate at over 6,000m altitude and hit targets accurately with dumb cheap bombs against primitive enemy forces... an accountants dream...

Militarov wrote:No offense but that satelite shot is genuine  as it comes from from ISI, fact is, PAK-FA HAD to be on tormac visible at some point, and this is the point. Now... i dont remember seeing hangars for aircraft on those long Voena Priemka show that covered airbase, so it could have been just BS said by Bondarev, wouldnt be his first time tbh.

Cheetah wrote:https://www.rt.com/news/420188-russian-su57-fighter-jets-syria/

...Russia’s defense minister has confirmed two were deployed for tests in Syria. However, they were there for just two days for combat and other tests...
...“There were two jets which were accompanied by laboratory aircraft, and planes which monitored the work of weapon systems.”...
...“I can tell you that the trial was successful; the planes returned home a week ago,” Shoigu added. “As for the photos which were published, I don’t know where they came from. The planes were inside hangars all the time [when parked].”...

So, according to the defence minister, the satellite photos are fake, there were only 2 T-50s in Syria (as opposed to 4), and that they are already packed up and back on home soil after successful combat tests.

This comment also goes contrary to the earlier reports which limited the tests to electronic/radar related ones.

I don't know, gents, I'm a little unsure of his honesty on this one.

eehnie wrote:

No offense, but is not surprising that you trust ISI instead of S Shoigu.

Militarov wrote:
No offense but that satelite shot is genuine  as it comes from from ISI, fact is, PAK-FA HAD to be on tormac visible at some point, and this is the point. Now... i dont remember seeing hangars for aircraft on those long Voena Priemka show that covered airbase, so it could have been just BS said by Bondarev, wouldnt be his first time tbh.

Vann7 wrote:

The shots were 100% fake..
This was confirmed by the Minister of Defense of Russia.. he don't deny they had planes in syria and in fact he told
they were used in Combat too. to test their weapons...  But at the same time ,he don't understand the pictures
being distributed on internet.. because he told the planes were all the time inside (protected) hangars.. (when parked)

So shoigu have no reason to lie over a non issue.. of whether the planes were inside a hangar or out in the open..
this is a meaningless subject. So i give more credit to Shoigu over any Israeli media /Israeli military claims..
So very likely the "satellite picture" is fake ... that is photoshoped.. ..

So is very likely and also makes sense ,that way before the planes were sent to Syria ,they requested the military
to prepare a hangar for the planes ,to protect them from heavy dust ,rain which can damage or saturate with dirt the stealth surface of the plane ,which can affect the plane evasion radar capabilities to some degree.

what is even MORE INTERESTING... and nobody is speaking about..
is how Russia managed to sneak 2 Pak-fa planes in Syria ,without NATO and its controlled western main stream
media not report it earlier ?  

Because whenever Russia sends a new plane there to Syria, CNN and every other US media ,including Israeli one ,reports it.. and shows pictures and photos...before anyone..  But this time ,neither western media or israeli media
reports about this.. until Russia reports it on RT.. So this tell me , Russia managed to infiltrate 2 stealth planes
in Syria airspace ,heavily monitored by NATO ...and nobody noticed the new planes until Russia told it.  

also i have no doubts ,Russia sent the planes there to send a message to NATO too... because the news was
reported for days on RT on major headlines.. and keep feeding controversy about Russia military reasons ,
not confirming or denying the existence of stealth planes , that only came when Syrian people civilians captured them in smartphones. when the planes were about to land on Russia military base.. but i think.. in my opinion who took the videos knew which planes he was seeing ,even when they were not clearly visible. for being too far. so it was an intentionally leak of information by Russia ,to send the west a message .

GarryB wrote:

Even assuming you are right there are plenty of alternatives... for instance there was the An-72P which was used for naval patrol and its rear doors were designed so that they could be opened and retracted so in the roof structure at the rear with the doors open it had two bomb pylons for 100kg flash bombs for night photography and viewing... there is no reason why the rear doors on the Il-76 could not be arranged so that rails could be fitted with bombs on a track so you could have 50 tons of bombs on two rails that are extended out the rear of the aircraft and released... the software would need to be calibrated but that would not cost millions of dollars.

Equally an area of floor could be opened to allow bombs to be released through the floor of the aircraft, or indeed the structure below the wing could open and allow bombs to be extended out below the wing and released on each side...

An An-124 with 120 tons of bombs would be a very capable bomber over strategic distances.

Equally 60 x 2 ton long range cruise missiles could be carried long distances too and launched by releasing them out the rear door.

Of course while being great and cheap against enemies with no air power at all even a small drone with a manpad missile attached to it could fly up and take your bomber out... so not really perfect...

d_taddei2 wrote:There is pics on the net of IL-76 with bombs and even An-32 dropping bombs out the back doors. But agree with you both. Article on the IL -76 with bombs


https://theaviationist.com/2015/02/06/russia-il76-bomber/

Policy 2 March, 1:30 UTC + 3
The official representative of the agency Maria Zakharova noted that "provocations by illegal armed formations made a large-scale ground-based counterterrorism operation inevitable"

Hundreds of Russian soldiers are alleged to have died in U.S. airstrikes at the beginning of February. Reporting by DER SPIEGEL shows that events were likely very different.

When it comes to cursing, the man doesn't hold back. "Son of a bitch" is the mildest cuss word that comes out of the militia member's mouth as he rants furiously about the inferno created by the hours-long American airstrike southeast of the city of Deir ez-Zor. Even as smoke continues to billow from burned out SUVs around them, he and five other men have come to remove the shattered body of one of their fellow fighters from the glowing embers of a bombed-out building.

The scene comes from a two-minute video of the battlefield that one of the fighters took on the afternoon of Feb. 8, hours after the firestorm, and provided to DER SPIEGEL and the Euphrates Post, a news site providing coverage of the region. It's the first photographic documentation of one of the most mysterious battles yet in this increasingly complex war.

Intially, the United States military announced on Feb. 8 it had attacked "pro-regime forces" of Bashar Assad's southeast of the city Deir ez-Zor to ward off an attack on a base belonging to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are allies of the Americans. The U.S. said the pro-Assad forces had attacked the SDF base with tanks and mortars. The U.S. fired back in response, claiming to have killed "more than 100" of the fighters in what was described as an act of self-defense.

But who exactly were these attackers? And what really happened that night in the small, half-deserted villages on the east bank of the Euphrates River? Did American bombs decimate Russian troops? Could the attack even be a foreboding of coming skirmishes between the Americans and Russians?
A team of DER SPIEGEL journalists spent two weeks interviewing both witnesses to, and participants in, the battle. The team also spoke to a staff member at the only hospital in Deir ez-Zor as well as an employee of the local military airport in an attempt to get a clear picture of exactly what took place during the three-day battle.

The accounts largely corroborate each other and the image of events that emerges is one that contradicts what has been reported in the Russian and international media.

At 5 a.m. on Feb. 7, around 250 fighters south of Deir ez-Zor attempted to cross from the west bank of the Euphrates to the east using a military pontoon bridge. They included members of the militias of two tribes, the Bekara and the Albo Hamad, who are fighting for Assad's regime with Iranian backing, soldiers of the 4th Division as well as Afghan and Iraqi fighters with the Fatimiyoun and Zainabiyoun brigades, which are under Iranian command. A soldier with the 4th Division recounted that the units had spent a week gathering on the property of the military airport. Witnesses say that no Russian mercenaries took part in the attempted crossing.

The Americans and the Russians agreed last year to make the Euphrates River a "deconfliction" line. Assad's troops and its allies are west of the river while the east side is controlled by SDF under the protection of the Americans. The east side is home to a chain of productive natural gas fields generally known as the Conoco field.

As such, the Americans on the eastern banks viewed the advance as an attack and fired a series of warning shots toward to bridge. Nobody was injured and the attackers withdrew.

But they didn't give up. Long after darkness, around twice as many men from the same groups crossed another makeshift bridge a few kilometers north, close to the Deir ez-Zor military airport. They drove without their lights on to prevent U.S. drones from spotting them. Undetected this time, they made it to the village of Marrat on the eastern side. When they advanced further south at around 10 p.m., toward the SDF base in Khusham, the Americans, whose special forces were also stationed there, once again opened fire. And this time they weren't warning shots. The U.S. said in a statement given to CNN that after "20 to 30 artillery and tank rounds landed within 500 meters" of the SDF headquarters, the coalition forces "targeted the aggressors with a combination of air and artillery strikes."

That was putting it mildly. Because right around the same time late that night, another group of Syrian tribal militia members and Shiite fighters came from the village of Tabiya to the south and also attacked the SDF base. And the Americans struck back with their entire destructive arsenal. They deployed rocket-equipped drones, combat helicopters, heavy AC 130 aircraft, nicknamed "gun boats," to fire on targets on the ground, rockets and ground artillery.

They struck in the night, followed by an attack the next morning on a group with a tribal militia in Tabiya that had only come to retrieve the bodies. And on Feb. 9, they once again attacked a unit of the same fighters who had popped up on the eastern side of the river.

A Different Version of Events

It was primarily the second night-time attack from the village of Tabiya that triggered the American paroxysm, said two men belonging to the al-Baqir militia of the Bekara tribe. Because in addition to the deconfliction line, there was also a second agreement which allowed up to 400 pro-Assad fighters, who remained on the east side of the Euphrates following the 2017 battle against Islamic State, to remain. At least as long as their weren't more than 400 of them and they remained peaceful. But exactly that was no longer the case.

Among those stationed in Tabiya was a small contingent of Russian mercenaries. But the two militia sources said they did not participate in the fighting. Still, they said, 10 to 20 of them did in fact lose their lives. They said a total of more than 200 of the attackers died, including around 80 Syrian soldiers with the 4th Division, around 100 Iraqis and Afghans and around 70 tribal fighters, mostly with the al-Baqir militia.
It all happened at night, and the situation became extremely complicated when the fighters from Tabiya entered the fray. A staffer at the only major hospital in Deir ez-Zor would later say that around a dozen Russian bodies were delivered. An employee at the airport, meanwhile, later witnessed the delivery of the bodies in two Toyota pickup trucks to a waiting Russian transport aircraft that then flew to Qamishli, an airport near the Syrian border in the north.

In the days that followed, the identities of the Russians killed would be revealed -- first of six and ultimately nine. Eight had been verified by the Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian investigative platform, and another was released by the radio station Echo Moscow. All were employees of the private mercenary company Evro Polis, which is often referred to by the nom du guerre of its head: "Wagner."

At the same time, however, a completely different version of events has gained traction -- disseminated at first by Russian nationalists like Igor "Strelkov" Girkin, and then by others associated with the Wagner unit. According to those accounts, many more Russians had been killed in the battle -- 100, 200, 300 or as many as 600. An entire unit, it was said, had been wiped out and the Kremlin wanted to cover it up. Recordings of alleged fighters even popped up apparently confirming these horrendous losses.

It was a version that sounded so plausible that even Western news agencies like Reuters and Bloomberg picked it up. The fact that the government in Moscow at first didn't want to confirm any deaths and then spoke of five "Russian citizens" killed and later, nebulously, of "dozens of injured," some of whom had died, only seemed to make the version of events seem more credible. It has generally been the case, after all, that when something in the Syrian war is denied by the Kremlin, or when the Russians admit to it bit by bit, then it is probably accurate. Besides, Russian losses in Syria are constantly played down.

'The Bad Luck of Being at the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time'

Relations between the Russian mercenaries in Syria -- it is thought there are more than 2,000 of them -- and the government in Moscow have been tense for some time. The fighters claim they are being used as cannon fodder, are being kept quiet and are poorly paid. For them to now accuse the Kremlin of trying to cover up the fact that Russians were killed -- by the Americans, of all people -- hits President Vladimir Putin's government in a weak spot: its credibility.

The only verifiable sources for the decimation of hundreds of Russians are the photos and videos circulating on the internet or from Russian sources that are passed on to Western journalists. Some of them show footage from eastern Ukraine that was later doctored or even the demo version of a video game that Putin personally showed to Hollywood director Oliver Stone as alleged proof of a Russian attack on an IS convoy.
The situation on the ground between Khusham and Tabiya on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, described by a half dozen witnesses and people who were party to the events, does not confirm Russian mercenary participation in the attack or even that they joined the fighting at all. Ahmad Ramadan, the journalist who founded the Euphrates Post and has since emigrated to Turkey, comes from Tabiya. One of his contacts fights for the al-Baqir militia and took the video at the site of the bombings. "If it had been a Russian attack, with many Russian dead, we would have reported about it," he said. "But it wasn't. The Russians in Tabiya just had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian investigative platform, and another was released by the radio station Echo Moscow. fStre

"Strelkov" Girkin, and then by others associated with the Wagner unit. According to those accounts, many more Russians had been killed in the battle -- 100, 200, 300 or as many as 600. An entire unit, it was said, had been wiped out and the Kremlin wanted to cover it up. Recordings of alleged fighters even popped up apparently confirming these horrendous losses.

It was a version that sounded so plausible that even Western news agencies like Reuters and Bloomberg picked it up.

Militarov wrote:
This article however does go aganist official Russian rant "no Russians died" that they were sticking to for a 3 weeks.

JohninMK wrote:

Militarov wrote:
This article however does go aganist official Russian rant "no Russians died" that they were sticking to for a 3 weeks.

I thought that the official line was that no Russian soldiers had died leaving open the option that other Russians may have died.

Map. Analysis of post-strike imagery of Khusham from Feb 15th reveals

13 likely US airstrikes (Red)
21 possible US strikes (orange)
71 areas of other battle damage (yellow, mostly from taking the town from ISIS).

Contact for high-res.

Vann7 wrote:The real question here is why Russia ,allowed americans combat planes for hours to bomb
Russian Army ,Russian citizens ,Iranian fighters anywhere in Syria without doing nothing to
save them ????

PapaDragon wrote:

Vann7 wrote:The real question here is why Russia ,allowed americans combat planes for hours to bomb
Russian Army ,Russian citizens ,Iranian fighters anywhere in Syria without doing nothing to
save them ????

Russian Army wasn't there, Russian citizens (PMCs) were stuck there by accident and Iranian dumbasses had it coming for being morons who can't follow​ the plan.