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Russian claims on Syria airstrikes 'inaccurate on grand scale', says report
Source: The Guardian
Russian claims on Syria airstrikes 'inaccurate on grand scale', says report
Open source investigation by Atlantic Council of where bombs fell
found most attacks to be outside Isis-held territory
Ewen MacAskill, Defence and intelligence correspondent
Tuesday 5 April 2016 14.36 BST
Russian claims to have mostly bombed Islamic State targets during its Syrian campaign were wildly out of step with reality, according to a report using aerial surveillance, crowdsourcing and other open source techniques.
The report says the almost six months of Russian airstrikes up until the 27 February ceasefire caused only peripheral damage to Isis.
When Russia decided to send its air force into action in September last year, the Kremlin chief of staff, Sergey Ivanov, said: “The operation’s military goal is exclusively air support of the Syrian armed forces in their fight against the IS.”
But the report by the Washington-based Atlantic Council describes such claims by Vladimir Putin and the Russian defence ministry as “inaccurate on a grand scale”. Its analysis of video footage of targets released by the Russian defence ministry between 30 September and 17 November last year repeatedly found them to have been outside Isis-controlled territory.
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Open source investigation by Atlantic Council of where bombs fell
found most attacks to be outside Isis-held territory
Ewen MacAskill, Defence and intelligence correspondent
Tuesday 5 April 2016 14.36 BST
Russian claims to have mostly bombed Islamic State targets during its Syrian campaign were wildly out of step with reality, according to a report using aerial surveillance, crowdsourcing and other open source techniques.
The report says the almost six months of Russian airstrikes up until the 27 February ceasefire caused only peripheral damage to Isis.
When Russia decided to send its air force into action in September last year, the Kremlin chief of staff, Sergey Ivanov, said: “The operation’s military goal is exclusively air support of the Syrian armed forces in their fight against the IS.”
But the report by the Washington-based Atlantic Council describes such claims by Vladimir Putin and the Russian defence ministry as “inaccurate on a grand scale”. Its analysis of video footage of targets released by the Russian defence ministry between 30 September and 17 November last year repeatedly found them to have been outside Isis-controlled territory.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/russian-claims-syria-airstrikes-inaccurate-report
