On Monday evening, we detailed [4] the Russian hardware being used in Moscow’s campaign to rout anti-regime forces and restore the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
As we noted in our preface to that feature, “watching Russia effectively humiliate the West by bragging day in and day out is nothing if it’s not amusing, and indeed the leaked diplomatic cable from 2006 which outlines Washington’s intent to effectively start a civil war in Syria leaves one completely uninclined to be at all sympathetic to the ridiculous situation the US and its allies have found themselves in.”
That, along with the fact that Western nations like France are not only unwiling to admit that the West's participation in Syria has been an outright disaster, but are now set to "correct" a refugee crisis by bombing the very place from which the refugees are fleeing leaves us inclined to highlight the following video (out today from the Russian Defense Ministry) that shows what happens when a military superpower decides that because an existing aerial campaign has become akin to shooting fish in a barrel, it might be time to do some sea-based target practice on a few Nike-wearing, black flag-waving jihadists…
From RT [5]:
Russia’s Defense Ministry has published a video of its warships firing cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea to hit the positions of Islamic State militants in Syria.
“[Last] night the ship strike group of the Russian Navy, consisting of the Dagestan missile ship, the small-sized missile ships Grad Sviyazhsk, Uglich and Veliky Ustyug launched cruise missiles against ISIS infrastructural facilities in Syria from the assigned district of the Caspian Sea,” the ministry said in a comment under the video.
According to the ministry, the Russian military attack was conducted “by high-precision ship missile systems Kalibr NK, the cruise missiles of which engaged all the assigned targets successfully and with high accuracy.”
On September 30, Russia launched its military operation against Islamic State at the request of the Syrian government. Since the start of the operation the Russian military have destroyed at least 112 objects, including commanding pints, ammunition depots and armored vehicles belonging to jihadists.