Russia in Syria- Tupolev Tu-95 Strategic Bombers Striking Cruise Missile...

http://www.newsbharati.com/ Russia in Syria- Tupolev Tu-95 Strategic Bombers Striking Cruise Missiles on ISIS.



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Bear bombers lead Russia’s robust response in Syria

Sam Jones, Defence and Security Editor



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A Russian Tupolev Tu-95 turboprop-powered strategic bomber flies above the Kremlin in Moscow, on May 7, 2015, during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade. A strategic bomber with seven people on board crashed in far eastern Russia on July 14 but its crew apparently managed to parachute out and a search for them was underway, the defence ministry said. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER NEMENOVALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images©AFP

If a single image could capture Vladimir Putin’s vision of a new world order it was the one provided by the Kremlin on Tuesday evening: a blurred shot of a massive Tu-95 “Bear” bomber, a cold war relic, launching a cutting-edge Russian cruise missile high above the Middle East.

As western powers moved to boost their own military responses to Isis’s bloody massacre in the heart of Paris on Friday, Russia mounted its most muscular display of military force in Syria to date, striking over 140 targets.

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The operations were the first use of the country’s long-range strategic bomber force in combat since the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, and the first ever use of the Tu-95 — whose distinctive wingspan made it a symbol of the cold war nuclear stand-off — in conflict.

Ostensibly it was a huge, retaliatory increase in firepower; a response to the attacks in Paris and the downing of Metrojet 9268. For the first time on Tuesday, the Kremlin admitted that the aeroplane, with its hundreds of Russian passengers, was brought down by a bomb planted by jihadis.

But many western diplomats are more cynical about Mr Putin’s motives.

In the wake of the Paris attacks, with hawkish politicians in Europe and Washington calling for greater use of military force in Syria, diplomats feel that Moscow is pressing its advantage as a would-be international leader in the war zone.

And it is still far from clear that Russia is refocusing its operations against Isis. Its air campaign in Syria until now has almost exclusively targeted anti-government rebels in an operation primarily aimed at shoring up the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Less than a fifth of strikes have been against Isis.

In depth



Paris attacks



A state of emergency has been declared in France after a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks in the capital. The government has responded with a series of police raids and stepped up air strikes against Isis in Syria



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Most reports of the targets hit by Russia on Tuesday indicated that the brunt of the Kremlin’s firepower had been directed at an area around Aleppo, where pro-Assad forces are battling moderate groups supported by Washington.

Speaking in Moscow on Tuesday, chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov hailed a “new plan of the air campaign”, promising a much greater tempo of bombing.

In total, 25 heavy bombers were used on Tuesday, launching dozens of Russian-made cruise missiles alongside long-range munitions launched from Russian ships in the Caspian Sea and bombs dropped by Russia’s existing deployment of jets at its newly-built base in Latakia.

The Russian Navy, US Admiral John Richardson told the FT in a recent interview, is now operating at its highest tempo in two decades. He said Russia had maintained investment in military equipment and forces despite the nation’s struggling economy.