On Friday, Russia’s military announced that its air force had conducted bombing operations against anti-government forces in Syria in response to a major offensive launched by extremists targeting the city of Aleppo. This information was reported by Russian state news agencies.
Jihadists and their Turkish-backed allies were reported to have reached Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, as they intensified their offensive against the government forces supported by Iran and Russia. The ongoing fighting is noted to be some of the deadliest seen in years during the protracted civil war in Syria.
According to reports, a spokesperson from the defense ministry’s Reconciliation Centre for Syria stated that the Russian air force was executing “rocket-bomb attacks” aimed at the equipment and manpower of “illegal armed groups,” as well as targeting control points, warehouses, and artillery positions of the terrorists. The spokesperson claimed that approximately 200 militants had been “destroyed” in the past 24 hours; however, this figure has not been independently verified by AFP.
Oleg Ignasyuk, the deputy head of the Russian reconciliation center, indicated that the operation to counter the extremists’ aggression was still ongoing. Notably, Moscow has been a crucial military ally for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, having significantly altered the course of the civil war in Assad’s favor since its military intervention in 2015.
