(EDM) Russia’s military intervention in Syria is clearly not going well. Last Friday (July 8), another helicopter was reportedly shot down near Palmyra, and the Russian Ministry of Defense, after an initial denial, had to admit that the downed aircraft was not a Syrian Mi-25, but a Russian Mi-35M on a combat mission from the Khmeimym airbase near Latakia (Kommersant, July 11). President Vladimir Putin felt obliged to interrupt his “disappearing act” and made a pilgrimage to the remote Valaam Monastery in Karelia, where he asked the resident Orthodox monks to pray for the two pilots who lost their lives (Kremlin.ru, July 11). Prayers were not the full extent of the Russian response, however. On Monday, six long-range Tu-22M3 bombers delivered a strike on an Islamic State (IS) camp, allegedly destroying three tanks (Gazeta.ru, July 12). This one-off resort to heavy bombing provides little reassurance: it was to be expected that the small grouping of Russian Aerospace Forces presently involved in high-risk operations and dealing with strained logistics would suffer new casualties. […]
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