Putin hailed the military’s performance, but added that “there is still a lot of work to do…to rid Syria of militants and terrorists and protect Russian Federation from possible terror attacks”.
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Russian Federation also unleashed cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea at targets across Syria, as Moscow kept up its intensified bombardments in the already war-torn country.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke earlier by phone to discuss the need for joint efforts to combat ISIS In Syria.
There were separate reports of a pair of Russian cruise missiles flying low over the Aleppo Province in the direction of the ISIS capital city of Raqqa. At least eight people were killed in 50 air raids in the oil-rich Deir Ezzor province.
“The Civil Aviation Authority made a decision to suspend all departing and arriving flights from and to Arbil and Sulaimaniyah airports” for 48 hours from 8:00 am (0500 GMT) today, it said in a statement, referring to airports in the autonomous Kurdish region.
The Russian military is pulling to stops on their attacks on the ISIS targets in Syria. The Islamic State group said it had bombed the Russian jet in Egypt in retaliation for the bombing raids. It has also claimed that it used a bomb to bring down a Russian airliner last month.
Most of those strikes targeted strongholds of the Islamic State group in Raqqa and Deir-ez-Zor, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The task of delivering Kalibr long-distance cruise missile strikes at Islamic State targets in Syria has been accomplished”, said Sergey Yekimov, a deputy commander of the Caspian Fleet.
President Bashar Assad said his forces are advancing on almost all fronts thanks to Russian airstrikes that began nearly two months ago and have tipped the balance in his favor in some parts of the country.
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The footage comes as Russia joins France in stepping up air strikes on ISIS targets in Syria following the terrorist attacks on Paris and on the Russian plane over the Sinai which claimed hundreds of lives.
