The National Interest’s David Majumdar tells readers that Pentagon officials “confirmed that Russia had given them prior notice of the operation. We are aware that over the past several hours Russia conducted a significant number of strikes in Raqqah, some of which have included long- range bombers.”
Mr. Majumdar continues, “Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered the Slava-class missile cruiser Moskva—which is the Russian flagship in the Mediterranean—and her taskforce to cooperate with French forces in the region.”
The Ministry of the Russian Federation posted the following. Read more here.
In the course of the last 2 days, the Russian air group continued additional checking of targets and engagement of separate facilities of terrorist groupings, which are active on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic.
Aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces have performed 141 combat sorties engaging 472 terrorist objects in the Aleppo, Damascus, Idlib, Latakia, Hama, Homs, Raqqah, and Deir ez-Zor provinces.
Russian bombers from the Hmeymim airbase have been performing combat missions on elimination of columns of petrol tank vehicles and oil production plants in the oil-bearing regions in the north and east of Syria. These facilities in the districts of Palmyra, Deir ez-Zor and Raqqah are controlled by terrorists and constitute their main source of income.
Near Raqqah, in the course of the air reconnaissance, two columns of vehicles were detected, which transported oil to processing plants controlled by the ISIS grouping. An airstrike made by Su-34 aircraft destroyed about 80 petrol tank vehicles of terrorists.
15 km to the south-west of Raqqah, a large oil depot terminal was destroyed.
50 km to the south of Raqqah, Su-34 bombers eliminated an oil production plant controlled by terrorists.
In the Al-Makhimira desert, 50 km to the north of Deir ez-Zor, Su-34 bombers made a strike on petrol tanks. The direct hit completely eliminated the object.
It is to be emphasized that in the course of the last five days, the Russian aircraft have destroyed over 1000 petrol tank vehicles, which had carried out transportation of crude oil to the plants controlled by the ISIS terrorists.
According to available information, received from the Information centre in Baghdad, terrorists suffered the heaviest losses in the provinces of Deir ez-Zor, Raqqah and Aleppo.
Video: Massive airstrike on ISIS objects in Syria carried out by long-range bombers of the Russian Aerospace Forces
