Register
Events
Popular
More
Post #1
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/wo...-to-syria.htmlMOSCOW — Russia’s chief arms exporter said Friday that his company was shipping advanced defensive missile systems to Syria that could be used to shoot down airplanes or sink ships if the United States or other nations try to intervene to halt the country’s spiral of violence.
“I would like to say these mechanisms are really a good means of defense, a reliable defense against attacks from the air or sea,” Anatoly P. Isaykin, the general director of the company, Rosoboronexport, said Friday in an interview. “This is not a threat, but whoever is planning an attack should think about this.”
As the weapons systems are not considered cutting edge, Mr. Isaykin’s disclosures carried greater symbolic import than military significance. They contributed to a cold war chill that has been settling over relations between Washington and Moscow ahead a meeting between President Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin, their first, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos next week.
Mr. Isaykin’s remarks come just days after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton raised diplomatic pressure on Russia, Syria’s patron, by criticizing the Kremlin for sending attack helicopters to Damascus, and amid reports that Moscow was preparing to send an amphibious landing vessel and a small company of marines to the Syrian port of Tartus, to provide security for military installations and infrastructure, if it becomes necessary.
George Little, a Defense Department spokesman, declined to comment on Mr. Isaykin’s remarks.
Aleksander Golts, an independent military analyst in Moscow, said the Russians’ discussion of defensive weapons shipments “undoubtedly” serves as a warning to Western countries contemplating an intervention.
“Russia uses these statements as a form of deterrence in Syria,” he said. “They show other countries that they are more likely to suffer losses.”
Throughout the Syrian crisis, Russia has insisted that all its arms sales to the isolated government of President Bashar al-Assad have been defensive in nature, and that the weapons were not being used in the Syrian leader’s violent campaign to suppress the opposition.
Mr. Isaykin underlined the point, but in a way that could also be interpreted as a warning to the West against undertaking military action of the sort that ousted Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power in Libya. Mr. Putin viewed that action as a breach of sovereignty that he does not want repeated.
Yet, as news reports of government massacres emerge almost daily from Syria, the prospect of the United States or NATO acting unilaterally has become a more frequently discussed option, particularly given Russia’s adamant refusal to authorize more aggressive United Nations action.
Mr. Isaykin, a powerful figure in Russia’s military industry, openly discussed the weapons being shipped to Syria: the Pantsyr-S1, a radar-guided missile and artillery system capable of hitting warplanes at altitudes well above those typically flown during bombing sorties, and up to 12 miles away; Buk-M2 antiaircraft missiles, capable of striking airplanes at even higher altitudes, up to 82,000 feet, and at longer ranges; and land-based Bastion antiship missiles that can fire at targets 180 miles from the coast.
Military analysts immediately questioned the effectiveness of the air defenses Russia has made available to nations in the Middle East, including Syria, none of which have offered even token resistance to Western forces.
Ruslan Aliyev, an authority on military affairs at the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, said that statements by Mr. Isaykin and others were issued principally for political effect. Moscow has declined to supply Syria with its most lethal air defense, the S-300 long-range missile system.
“As far as I understand, Syria is not able to defend itself from NATO, just like it failed to defend its nuclear facility from Israel’s September 2007 airstrike,” Mr. Aliyev wrote in an e-mailed response to questions. “Russian armaments are unlikely to be significantly helpful, I’m afraid.”
Since Mrs. Clinton’s statement, both sides have sought to play down the helicopters’ significance, saying they were of marginal use militarily. A State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said Thursday that the secretary of state was referring to three helicopters that were returned recently to Syria after being refurbished in Russia.
In the interview, Mr. Isaykin said that the contract to overhaul the helicopters was signed in 2008, was never secret and had been reported to international organizations. “It was an absolutely routine contract,” he said.
Syria has spent about $500 million annually in recent years on Russian weaponry, Mr. Isaykin said in the interview, an order book that amounts to about 5 percent of Rosoboronexport’s business.
For nearly a decade, Mr. Isaykin said, Rosoboronexport has had no Syrian orders for rifles, ammunition, ground-to-ground rockets, helicopters and their onboard weapons or armored vehicles — the basic tools of a conflict that is escalating into civil war.
The Middle East, he said, is “flooded” with Soviet-style small arms, often made in knockoff versions by the Chinese or Eastern Europeans, elbowing Russia out of this market.
The Russian arms trade business with Syria has depended in recent years on large and complex antiaircraft systems. They violate no United Nations sanctions, he said, and cannot be used against civilians in a domestic conflict.
“We just send them to Syria,” he said. “Ask the Syrians where they put them.”
-
-
It's over. It's done. My sympathies go to the soon dead people of Syria.
-
Fuck off, Russia
-
Looks like we are getting closer to Cold War 2.0
-
Wait a second. Amphibious Landing Craft?
Broken automerge
-
http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1191066
It actually is looking this way.
-
Well this is getting very interesting.
-
Well, I mean, you know. That's quite logical - these rockets can do no harm to people of Syria. Just like it was stated.
That's what you get when president is illegitimate, straight dictator and his bank accounts are not arrested. Thanks, Western democracies, for that big help you offered Russian people, for recognising Putin as a legitimate president, now eat this stuff.
-
Growlers and Super Hornets do your thing.
-
The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
August 2008
11,800 Posts
This is oddly similar to what they were doing during the cold war.
Edited:
This time with slightly different motivations.
-
This ain't good at all.
I hope everyone will remember the state of MAD and it will be another cold war.
At least they could attempt more sweet space research.
-
except in this space race, the russian rockets come back from their missions to crash into America and detonate warheads
-
Russia's really asking for it, sending protection and supplies to Syria's government.
-
Asking for what, exactly?
Edited:
It isn't like the USA will go to war with Russia over Syria.
-
What they're asking for is a negative response from the UN. As long as everyone's focused on their support of Syrian affairs, they can't focus on Russia's political and social problems.
-
Oh no, poor Russia is doomed.
-
Asking for what exactly? For supporting the currently legitimate government of Syria? Keep in mind the government is still legitimate and that even if the have or don't have transgressions against human rights.
The russians do have full right to set up shields if requested by the Syrian government. They also might have a long standing mutual help treaty with each other.
World politics are not black and white but instead multiple shades of grey.
Though obviously in general this is a response to american plans to set up a missile defense shield in Europe right next to the RF. So in a sense the americans started this one.
-
To be fair, there was ( almost) an awful lot of that going on in the first one too.
-
I honestly can't take sides on this, the both sides of Syrian civil war are possibly making false-flag operations and NATO, Russia and China are already making this a small proxy-war. Whatever the outcome is, it's in the colour of grey. There's no good guys in this one (and there never were)
-
brb, moving to new zealand
-
Once these are in place there will be nothing anyone can do.
-
Russia pls go
-
What's so bad about giving Syria anti-air missiles? Even if you can dumb fire them against ground targets, I don't think they would want to waste them on a few guys with AKs. These things are expensive. The way I see it they're just trying to keep NATO from interfering on the same level as Libya. And look how well that turned out for us.
-
It...didn't turn out that bad?
-
Everyone should just get along :(
-
The government we installed barely has any control. I doubt Syria would turn out much better.
-
Dunno, Tomahawk worked pretty soundly in Libya. And don't forget almost the entire focus of ground attack aircraft design in the late cold war was flying below the radar to eliminate/avoid enemy seeker radar.
-
I for one think Russia is not a crazy war-mongering Genocide supporting bad guy. I think the situation on the ground in syria, and who is really behind all the attacks, is being hidden. Just like it happened with Qaddafi. Consider this: In tripoli; 95% of the town population came out in support of Qaddafi and it is the same story all over Lybia. The issue is that most of the rebels and inciters are either planted, or hopped up on drugs. Qaddafi did not attack his own people, his people loved him. He brought literacy up, provided a house for every single citizen, and brought lybia to become one of the strongest nations in africa. Now a few airstrikes and falsified news reports later, we have killed "the horrible tyrant".....
Seriously this whole fucking thing is a god damn puppet show
Edited:
Its also the same ploy they did with Saddam, they play on your emotions to make you totally accept what they are telling you. With Saddam they got a Diplomats daughter to pose as an attendant witness to "Saddams forces removing babys from incubators and leaving them on the ground". A complete tug at the heartstrings. Who wouldn't hate his fucking guts after that? Now in syria, some killings happen and everyone points to the leader. Yet Russia is not buying it, just like they didnt buy Lybia. America wants to bomb the shit out of Syria, and Russia is just telling everyone to hold their fucking horses. But because of the spin of western media, they sound like cruel barbarians in doing so.
-
I'd find your story more believable if Russia didn't make billions in arms sales to the butcher Assad.
Russia has been bullshitting everybody. They use their position as a government against intervention to hide from the blame when atrocities take place, but simultaneously arm and supply a regime which has been confirmed to commit multiple atrocities.
And I think you need to do more research about Qaddafi.
Seriously. You're kidding right?
-
Looks like someone's run out of Clozapine.
-
prove it
-
Good. Maybe this will help prevent an intervention and allow the Syrians to actually fight for themselves and stop the needless bombings.
-
This is one of the more interesting posts I have ever seen on this forum.
I don't know whether to thank you or slap you.
-
Or they get over run and slaughtered.
-
When all these Syrian civilians are murdered by their government, then the Russians can remember the blood of the Syrian people is on their hands as well.
-
"Fight for themselves".
You mean throw rocks at tanks.
-
Interesting in the same way Otsegolation talking about orgone energy Nibiru is "interesting".
-
I totally agree with this post. The superpowers are playing politics with a country tearing itself apart. Russia want to maintain arms trade and a base there and the west want Assad out. The violence is sectarian and is happening on both sides.
The news reports coming from western media are very one sided and blame Assad. The news channels like RT are blaming the west.
Assad is very popular in Syria and to suggest his people want him out is crazy. Assad has no control over the militias who want him to stay. This is like Lebanon all over again except this time its Muslims against Muslims.
-
its all about the new world order brah
gaddafi found out about them and was going to go public
he had to b removed
oh shit soemone just kicked in my dooor! they knowswwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
-
do you think that, when al-assad is gone, the new syrian government will tell russia to fuck off?
Friendly x 50
Winner x 4
Dumb x 2
Funny x 1
Agree x 75
Optimistic x 10
Disagree x 1
