Today mixed news from Syria. In Northern Aleppo there is only small progress by the Syrian army and Hesbollah, they have taken control of a road from Mayer to the neighbour village Kafin. It is mentioned that this is also important, because this are has been used in the past by the rebels to attack the towns Zahra and Nubl, which are now outside the attack distance with mortars. The Kurds seem to have made more progress, they have made some progress in the South (securing in this way Zahra and Nubl from the Southern side and creating some security belt around Afrin), taken a village near a military airport, and there are even claims that they have taken Deir Dzhamal, which is the next big village North of Mayer on the road to Aziz.
Good news from Southern Aleppo. There the local terrorists have used a few days ago the beginning of the offensive in the North of Aleppo (where, clearly, some forces from the South are used) to counterattack, and have taken a village. This village has now been taken back.
Mixed news from Eastern Aleppo. On the one hand, success for ISIS - they have taken Assin and Rasm Al Jub. On the other hand, the Syrian army has taken some seemingly important hill. Battles in this region are ongoing. But a good news: Syrian army now attacking also from the other side, and has taken a village Taaneh.
Well, what you have now is a Mother Russia who is at war with its neighbors (e.g. Georgia and Ukraine) and fighting to support a murderous dictator in Syria while falling into a deep depression and has become an international pariah in the process.
Nonsense. There was a war one week 2008 after Georgia's aggression. There was no war at all with the Ukraine.
If Mother Russia would be so dumb as to start a nuclear war as you have suggested, it would be the world against Mother Russia.
Of course, Russia would not start a war. The actual danger is that Turkey or Saudi Arabia starts a war against Syria, and that this war is escalated by the NATO toward a war NATO against Russia. Even this would not mean a nuclear war by itself - but a nuclear war would be started by Russia if the NATO would otherwise win the war. This is the official Russian military doctrine.
If the nuclear war starts, it would not matter who is on the other side, because the only nuclear power which counts is the US, everything else is nothing serious. And it would be clear that as the US, as Russia would not last long, but above would be finished in short time.
As has been repeatedly brought to your attention Mother Russia lacks the ability to deliver much of its nuclear weaponry.
Fortunately, the US leadership knows better. So there is reasonable hope that they know that a nuclear war is not only the end of Russia, but also the end of the US. Same for all NATO states.
When Mother Russia launched its cruise missiles which targeted Syrian dissidents, 25 percent of those missiles crashed before reaching their targets.
Cheap propaganda, fortunately the US military knows the accurate information.
And Syria has no missile defenses.
Syria is defended by S 400, which is accordings to a lot of sources the actually best air defense system, and works also against missiles. There is information that Syria has an own S 300, which is the older and now export variant of it, it is good enough. Don't forget that the "invisible" B2 bomber was shot down by an old Russian air defense system already in the Kosovo war.
As previously pointed out to you, the US has deployed very sophisticated antimissile capabilities including laser weapons. Mother Russia has no such weapons.
That's your dreamworld.
Oh, then why is Putin in the process of updating Russia's aged nuclear missiles? As has been previously pointed out to you, whither you want to recognize it or not, Putin certainly recognizes his nuclear missile capabilities are old and decrepit, else he wouldn't want to update them.
Of course, updating is a continuous process, which essentially never stops.
And that gets us to the point, Russia's conventional forces are weak and could never pose a significant threat to the US or to the West.
They are not intended to be a threat, but a powerful defense. And as a defense of Russia, they are powerful. Don't forget that the Georgian army was heavily supported with NATO weapons, NATO training of the troops and so on, and 2008 the Russian army was yet in a much worse state. The result you know: One week for a total victory.
LOL...shipping an obsolete defense system that it will never use isn't a military response.
At least the Turkish planes behave as they should, and no longer impose any danger to the Russian fighters.
Russia isn't supporting the Kurds, the US is.
Wrong. Russia has supported the Kurds as against ISIS around the Tishreen dam, and supports them now against the beloved US "moderate" Al Qaida.
Additionally, the only parties who have attacked civilians here is Putin and his buddy Assad.
Also a propaganda lie.
Additionally, Mother Russia and China are not allies. The have an oil deal whereby Mother Russia will sell oil to China. That isn't an alliance comrade.
They have military cooperation, but of course this is nothing you would know.
The US is China's single largest trading partner. I don't think China would risk offending its largest trading partner to appease a small faltering trading partner (i.e. Putin). The much vaunted 2015 Sino-Russia trade deal has fallen on hard times and much disagreement. Not to mention the fact China is not impressed with Putin's military adventurism (i.e. annexation of neighboring states). China is a neighboring state. And as previously mentioned, China's border disputes with Russia were only resolved a few years ago. Those facts are not lost on China. The Chinese aren't as dumb as you need them to be.
And because they are not dumb, they know that in case of US success in Russia they will be the next candidate for regime change. And they also know that, different from Russia, they can be, yet, blackmailed by the US with a nuclear first strike. But if they cooperate with Russia, they are safe from such blackmail.
Two, Assad lost control of his country all by himself.
Against a coalition of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordania, and behind them US and NATO which all supported jihadist terrorists in violation of international law.
The US wants a stable government in Syria in order to prevent terrorists groups like ISIS from forming.
No. What the US wanted was regime change and chaos. Because Israel prefers chaos in comparison with strong Arab states. They think they are able, for long, to handle a civil war between 500 rebel factions, but are afraid of stable Arab regimes.
Three, unlike the US and Western powers, Mother Putin doesn't have the military capability to project military force anywhere in the world.
This is where Syria is the test case. And it seems, Russia has the military capacity which was necessary to change the scenario of this civil war, and turning Assad from the loser into a winner. At costs which are paid out of the normal military budget (budget items training for pilots, utilization of old bombs, presentation of the abilities of various weapons to potential customers and so on) and already visible after four months.
PS: what yesterday was "twitter only" seems now confirmed and established - Obin in North Latakia taken by the Syrian army. And, as a replacement, another "twitter only": The village Kafin mentioned above has been taken by the Syrian army.
