{"id":11865,"date":"2015-09-05T10:21:35","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T15:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11865"},"modified":"2015-09-05T10:21:35","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T15:21:35","slug":"putin-confirms-scope-of-russian-military-role-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11865","title":{"rendered":"Putin Confirms Scope Of Russian Military Role In Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Putin Confirms Scope Of Russian Military Role In Syria<\/a><\/h3>\n

Over the past 48 hours or so, we\u2019ve seen what certainly appears to be visual confirmation of a non-negligible Russian military presence in Syria. For anyone coming to the story late, overt Russian involvement would seem to suggest that the geopolitical \u201cmain event\u201d (so to speak), may be closer than anyone imagined.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s excuse for being in Syria is the same as everyone else\u2019s: they\u2019re there, ostensibly, to fight ISIS. As we mentioned yesterday, and as we\u2019ve detailed exhaustively as it relates to Turkey,\u00a0the fact that ISIS has become a kind of catch-all, go-to excuse for legitimizing whatever one feels like doing is a dangerous precedent and Turkey\u2019s crackdown on the Kurds proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Islamic State will serve as a smokescreen for more than just the preservation\/ouster (depending on which side you\u2019re on) of Bashar al-Assad.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having said all of that, going into the weekend Russia had yet to confirm publicly that it had commenced military operations in Syria despite the fact that it\u2019s the next closest thing to common knowledge that at the very least, the Kremlin has provided logistical support and technical assistance for a period that probably spans two or more years.<\/p>\n

But on Friday, Vladimir Putin looks to have confirmed the scope of Russia\u2019s military role, even if he stopped short of admitting that Russian troops are engaged in combat. Here\u2019s\u00a0The Telegraph<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
Russia is providing \u201cserious\u201d training and logistical support to the Syrian army, Vladimir Putin has said,\u00a0in the first public confirmation of the depth of Russia\u2019s involvement in Syria’s civil war.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And while the highlighted passage there is actually impossible to prove given that the term “depth” is subjective, it certainly does appear that Putin is now willing to concede that support for Assad goes far beyond “political”. Here’s\u00a0AFP as well<\/a>:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Putin Confirms Scope Of Russian Military Role In Syria Over the past 48 hours or so, we\u2019ve seen what certainly appears to be visual confirmation of a non-negligible Russian military presence in Syria. For anyone coming to the story late, overt Russian involvement would seem to suggest that the geopolitical \u201cmain event\u201d (so to speak), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1239,446,447,474,8717,660,776,818,4318],"class_list":["post-11865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-is","tag-isis","tag-islamic-state","tag-kurds","tag-military-involvement","tag-putin","tag-syria","tag-turkey","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11866,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11865\/revisions\/11866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}