Russian ‘Volunteer’ Ground Forces to Join Fight in Syria

Officials at the Kremlin said Monday that Russian “volunteer” ground forces would join the fight in Syria, and NATO issued a strong warning to Moscow after at least one Russian fighter jet trespassed into Turkish airspace, the New York Times reports.

Although Russian president Vladimir Putin has said he would not enter troops into Syria’s ongoing bloody conflict, his top military coordinator at the Kremlin, Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, revealed a plan Monday for purported Russian volunteers to enter the fray.

While the Obama administration called Russia’s actions on Monday “deliberately provocative,” Adm. Komoyedov was quoted as saying Moscow’s “volunteers” heading to Syria “cannot be stopped.”

Russia currently has nearly 600 military personnel on the ground in Syria, not including its aircrews, and has set up housing units for approximately 2,000 people near its air base in Latakia, American military officials told the New York Times.

Russian Airstrikes Ruin Chances of Political Solution: Syria Rebels More than 40 of the strongest rebel groups in Syria released a statement Monday saying that Moscow’s air offensive in the war-torn country had ruined the chances of any political solution to the ongoing civil war, Agence France-Presse reports.

The statement, which was signed by 41 different groups including Jaish al-Islam near Damascus, Ahrar al-Sham in northwest Syria and the Northern Front, said that Russia’s “brutal occupation has cut the road to any political solution,” and argued for the creation of a regional alliance to combat Syrian government forces and its allies.

“Russia jumped in to rescue the Assad regime after it was clinically dead, in order to prevent it from suffering a sweeping defeat,” the statement reads. “This new reality makes it imperative that regional countries, and allies in particular, hasten to form a regional alliance in the face of the Russian-Iranian alliance of occupation.”

Russian Aerial Campaign Extends to Damascus

Russian fighter jets expanded Moscow’s air campaign to the outskirts of Damascus on Monday, the Daily Star reports, hitting 10 different ISIS targets throughout Syria.

Of yesterday’s 15 sorties, the most notable target was an ISIS command and communications center in the hilly region outside of Syria’s capital. Russian jets also reportedly hit ISIS command centers in the province of Aleppo, two ammunition storehouses and nearly 20 tanks in Homs, as well as 30 vehicles, some of which were armored, in Idlib.

Syria’s foreign minister said Monday that Damascus and Moscow had been preparing Russia’s air offensive and new military “steps” for months.

Top Image: A Russian military support crew attaches a satellite-guided bomb to an SU-34 fighter jet at Hmeimim airbase in Syria on October 3, 2015. (Associated Press/Alexander Kots)

Recommended Reads

• War on the Rocks: How Russia’s Gambit in Syria Changes the Game
• TIME: Russian Propaganda Struggles to Find Good Reasons for Bombing Syria
• The Washington Post: Obama is Right to Be Cautious in Syria
• BBC: Syria Conflict: The Close Ties Behind Russia’s Intervention
• The Washington Post: The High Cost of Avoiding War in Syria