Putin: Russian ship to help France with Syrian operations
Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, currently in the Mediterranean, to start co-operating with the French military on operations in Syria.
The Russian president’s statement came as the country’s defence minister said its war planes have fired cruise missiles on militant positions in Syria’s Idlib and Aleppo provinces.
Islamic State has positions in Aleppo province; while the Nusra militant group is present in Idlib.
Hours earlier, Russia had acknowledged that a terrorist bomb was responsible for the crash of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 people aboard. IS claimed responsibility for downing the plane.
The plane crash and the weekend wave of terrorist attacks in Paris clearly have raised Russia’s determination to fight IS.
However, concern remains in the West that its Syria air strikes are also targeting rebels who are opposed to Syrian president Bashar Assad but not affiliated with radical groups.
Mr Putin said a French aircraft carrier task force is to approach the Moskva soon and the cruiser is to “co-operate with them as with allies”.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu also told a briefing conducted for Mr Putin on Tuesday that Russian bombers hit Islamic State positions in Raqqa and Der-ez-Zor.
Mr Shoigu said the cruise missiles that hit the Aleppo and Idlib positions were fired from supersonic Tu-160 bombers and from Tu-95s, long-distance turboprop strategic bombers.
Some of those long-distance aircraft started their missions from Russian territory, he said.
As Russia’s campaign in Syria intensified, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticised the United States for pursuing what he said was a contradictory and confusing policy in Syria.
In remarks in a Russian TV documentary shown on Tuesday, Mr Lavrov said that analysis of US attacks on Islamic State militants in Syria over the past year indicates that the attacks are sparing the IS units that would pose the most threat to the Syrian army and Mr Assad.
The US wants to see Mr Assad removed from power.
Mr Lavrov said this means that Washington is effectively “sitting on two chairs”.
