“There is no more efficient way of training than real combat”, he said, adding that the military action in Syria allowed the Russian armed forces to test its long-range cruise missiles and other new weapons in real action for the first time.
Advertisement
He declined to respond to questions from reporters after emerging from two-an-a-half-hour discussions with United Nations special envoy Staffan de Mistura.
Lt. General Sergei Rudskoi said on Friday that Russian aircraft based in Syria were conducting 20-25 sorties a day in support of the Syrian military’s offensive.
A Russian academic named this week as a mediator in the Syrian peace talks is an acclaimed expert on the Arab world with the trust of the Kremlin, a sign of the influence Moscow has won at the negotiating table after a five-month military campaign. The Saudi-backed Higher Negotiating Committee, the main opposition bloc, insists that the president must leave office at the start of a transitional period. “And that any counter-ISIL (Islamic State group) strikes that may have been done, would have been – from a Russian standpoint – via artillery systems”, Ryder said. She says WFP is speaking with partners inside the Syrian city of Deir el-Zour to try to improve drop-zone conditions.
“The government is now focusing very much on principles, which are necessary in any type of common ground on the transition”, he said.
The still-significant pace of strikes suggests that Russian Federation retains a substantial number of warplanes at its Hmeimim air base in Syria’s Latakia province even after the drawdown Putin announced Monday.
But US officials said Russian Federation staged no air strikes in Syria in the past week.
ISIS seized Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in eastern Syria known as the “Pearl of the Desert”, last May, sending shock waves across the world.
The Islamic State group has claimed the killing of five Russian troops in fighting near the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. “But the [Higher Negotiating Committee] continues to repeat its demand divorced from reality that ‘Assad must go.’ This opposition group should avoid ultimatums and show more flexibility”. Putin said he did not want to have to escalate Russia’s involvement in the conflict again after the draw-down and was hoping peace talks would be successful.
The intra-Syrian talks to settle the five-year civil war in Syria were resumed in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 14.
Syrian government negotiators at Geneva peace talks are coming under pressure to discuss the future of President Bashar al-Assad, something that the diplomats are keen to avoid, Reuters reported.
Chris Woods, director of monitoring group Airwars, said: “Any strategic benefits of Russia’s intervention have come at a bloody cost to civilians, with all local casualty recorders in agreement that 2,000 or more non-combatants have died”.
Advertisement
There has been little movement of Russian ground forces, Ryder said, adding that Moscow has kept combat helicopters and some transport planes in Syria.
