Russian President Putin admits to supporting Syria in civil wars

Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted Moscow’s involvement in providing “serious” training and logistical support to Syria in the civil war. The president did not govern any direct military involvement in the Syrian war and said that Russia’s support to the Syrian army is still “premature.”

“To say we’re ready to do this today – so far it’s premature to talk about this. But we are already giving Syria quite serious help with equipment and training soldiers, with our weapons,” Putin replied when asked on intervention of Russia in Syria at an economic forum held in Vladivostok, as quoted by the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency, according to the Telegraph reports.

Putin said that Russia is planning to form coalition with other nations to fight terrorism and extremism. “To this end, we hold consultations with our American partners – I have personally spoken on the issue with U.S. President Obama,” he said.

It is not the first time when Putin appeared to support Syria. Earlier, he used his U.N. Security Council veto power to support Syrian president Bashar al-Assad during the four and a half year-long war that claimed around 250,000 lives. He also supported Syria when it was accused of using chemical weapons by Syrian doctors on the civilians, as investigated by international organisations.

The Daily Telegraph reports depicted that Assad’s regime killed more civilians than the ISIS terrorists in a civil war. Despite his support for such Syrian acts, Putin considered himself as a “against terrorism” fighter.

In May 2015, at the Camp David summit, U.S. President Barack Obama said that in case any evidence is found against Russia of using chemical weapons such as chlorine, then the latter will be under pressure. U.S. would then “reach out to patrons of Assad like Russia to put a stop to it,” the Guardian reported Obama saying.

Based on the reports from Daily Telegraph, Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli newspaper, reported Russia is planning to deploy thousands of troops to Syria to establish an airbase and launch air attacks against the ISIS.

The Russian analysts, on the other hand, claimed the report as inaccurate, saying Moscow would not repeat the mistake U.S. has already done in Iraq. In addition, they also stated that Russia is busy in dealing with Ukraine at this moment.

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