Small group protests in Moscow against Syria airstrikes

Control of Aleppo city, once the country’s economic hub, has been divided between the regime and rebels since mid-2012.

Russian airstrikes are now supporting an attack by Bashar al Assad’s troops, backed by Hezbollah militants and Iranian fighters, south of Aleppo.

“It increased in the last days, and it has proven its effectiveness”, he said.An alliance of insurgents targeted by Russian air strikes said on Tuesday it was starting an operation to recapture Hama. Sanctioned anti-war in Ukraine and Syria protests were being held in downtown Moscow on Saturday. “US strategy is not proxy war, but to let President Vladimir Putin dig his own hole in the morass that is the Syrian civil war”. That brought them to the edges of Al-Hader, 25 kilometres from Aleppo. A few 2,000 families fled the fighting.

If the army succeeds in securing the airbase, it could be used by Russian Federation planes – now flying out of the Hmeimim base in Latakia province on the Mediterranean coast – to launch sorties and strikes, the Observatory said.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday at the 6th Xiangshan Security Forum in the Chinese capital of Beijing, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Moscow has not yet received a request for military assistance from the Iraqi government in the fight against the Takfiri terror network, but it would consider such an appeal, Tass news agency reported. “Of course we are not fighting for specific leaders, we are defending our national interests, on the one hand”, Mr Medvedev said in an interview to air on state television.

Asserting that the only way to end the civil war in Syria was through a legitimate, inclusive government there, US President Barack Obama has said that he hopes Russian Federation would soon realise it can’t “buy peace” in the war-torn country through air strikes.

“An attempt by Russian Federation and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire, and it won’t work”, Obama said, as quoted by FT.

Medvedev says that the USA had shown “weakness” in refusing to commit to bilateral talks, adding that, IS continues to spread and “only Russia’s involvement has changed the situation”.

He also said that all 26 cruise missiles fired from Russian ships at targets in Syria in the Caspian Sea earlier this month hit their targets, denying US claims that four missiles had crashed in Iran.