Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/693549
In the first few hours after annoucement, some non-of- ficial information started to appear, stating that reduc- tion will greatly affect the contingent and include prac- tically all of the tactical air forces deployed and most of the helicopters and land forces deployed to Syria. That action, ignoring eventual political justification, seemed to be illogical from the operational point of view, when the Islamic terrorist organizations still control great area of Syria under control. Moreover, the possibility of upholding a cease-fire agreement signed at the end of February is not so sure. Passing days and weeks proved that there is really no chance on great reduction of forc- es but only few changes adapting Russian contingent to the new operational reality in Syria. Those changes not only didn't lead to great degradation of combat ca- pabilities of the contingent but also in some cases they greatly increased those capabilities. PRoPaganda withdRaw According to the Putin's decision about withdrawing "main part" of the Russian forces out of Syria due to "fulfilling tasks set for Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces" operation of reducing them was to start a day earlier and it did. Operation of withdrawing from Syr- ia to Russian Federation tactical combat aircraft and technical crews was finalized from 15th to 16th March and had great media coverage, including numerous TV coverages from solemn crews' dismissals and aircraft departing the base in Chmeimim and arrivals to the home airfields in Russian Federation. Whole operation was presented in Russian media in a way suggesting that they were making a great reduction to the Russian contin- gent, especially its aviation component. In real terms, reductions were limited to sending back to Russia ten Su-25SM and two Su-25UB close air support air- crafts, four Su-34 bombers and four Su-24M bombers. Only withdrawn Su-25SM/UB was in the original tac- tical air group of Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) in Chmeimim, other aircrafts came to Syria as support for the Russian forces already stationed in country. Lot of combat aircraft remained in Chmeimim, including now four Su-35S multirole fighters, four Su-30SM multiro- le fighters, four Su-34 bombers and dozen of Su-24M bombers. Those are truly sufficient forces for providing appropriate support for Syrian government forces in the reality of cease-fire agreement since 27th Febru- ary. It is worth to mention that in effect of signing that cease-fire agreement between government forces and so called "moderate" opposition armed groups, average amount of flights of VKS in span of 24 hours in Syria was reduced from 60-80 to about 20-30. On 17th March, in the Georgiyevskaya Hall in Kremlin, a ceremony of handing decorations to the most valua- ble participants of military operation in Syria was held. Quite interesting was a fact that some of the decorated www.fragoutmag.com