Watch Russian warships in the Mediterranean Sea launch cruise missiles against targets in Aleppo

Some interesting footage shows the Russians are not only launching air strikes from Iran…

On Aug. 19, at around 10:55LT in the morning, the Zeliony Dol and Serpukhov small-sized missile ships of the Black Sea Fleet, sailing in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, performed 3 launches of Kalibr cruise missiles  against facilities of the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist grouping in Syria.

According to the information released by the Russian MoD, the cruise missiles targeted a command center and a terrorist base near the Dar-Taaza inhabited area as well as a plant manufacturing mortar munitions and a large depot with armament, in the Aleppo province.

The data collected by the Russians “confirmed the elimination of the planned targets.”

The Russian Defence Ministry published some footage of the launches, of the destruction of their targets and the subsequent Battle Damage Assessment (filmed from a UAV – Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) on their Youtube channel.

It was not the first time the Russian Navy hit targets in Syria from the Med: in December 2015, a Russian improved Kilo-class Rostov-on-Don submarine launched the Kalibr-PL cruise missile against targets in the area of Raqqa.

The Kalibr-PL is a submarine-variant of the 3M14TE Kalibr-NK cruise missile with maximum range of 2,600 km, fired by the Russian small-sized missile ships earlier today.

Anyway, the cruise missiles attack shows the Russians continue to pound targets in Syria from different directions and with different weapons systems as it comes few days after at least four Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers conducted their first air strike in Syria departing from their temporary deployment airfield at Hamedan airbase in Iran.

Noteworthy, it seems that the deployment of the Backifres to Iran has already finished: the more recent imagery shows only four Su-34 Fullback bombers on the ground at the Iranian base.


 

 

About David Cenciotti
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.
David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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  • pretty weak...I guess when you dont have smart bombs you have to use what you have, Two, million dollar cruise missiles to hit an empty building.

    • During the Cold War, the Soviets lacked precision guidance systems. They compensated by making the warhead larger. I guess this trend still stands.

      • One can only put so large of a warhead on a Tomahawk-sized weapon (which these are IIRC) and still get a decent range.

  • Wel the Russian drone got sorted in the end then after that massive lambasting from Putin a little while back. There is a youtube video out there of it all. Curious though why even use the Tu22M3 at all if its so much closer, the Su34 is the natural choice anyway being significantly newer and smaller but still with impressive payload?

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