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.
The Kalibr-PL is a submarine-variant of the 3M14TE Kalibr-NK cruise missile with a 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.
First confirmation of Su-34s at Hamedan airbase (Iran) on 17 August, Tu-22M3s went back to RF, Stratfor via @jseldinpic.twitter.com/onXZ5qw7XE
It looks like Russian Su-24s flew over US warship in Black Sea. Again.
According to several Russian media outlets, Russian Navy Su-24 Fencer jets “forced” a U.S. Navy destroyer to head towards neutral waters after it was noticed by Russian Black Sea monitoring stations heading into Russia’s territorial waters.
Reportedly, the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Ross was heading directly towards Russian waters after leaving the Romanian port of Costanta. Russian Su-24s were scrambled towards the warship.
After the close encounter with the Su-24 jets, the destroyer “then turned around and left for neutral waters,” says RT, suggesting an unlikely violation of the Russian territorial waters by the U.S. warship.
“It seems that the Americans did not forget the April 2014 incident when one Su-24 actually shut down all equipment on the new USS Donald Cook American destroyer with anti-missile system elements,” an unnamed source said to Sputnik News.
Following the incident, speculations (fueled by propaganda) reported that the Su-24 jammed all the systems aboard USS Cook to such an extent all the onboard screens went black and 27 officers resigned as a consequence of the attack: a quite unbelievable and unlikely story.
There are reports that Belbek airport has been surrounded by an unknown militia.
Although civilian flights were suspended in 2007, the airfield, currently guarded by unknown troops is known as Sevastapol International airport.
Its current occupants are the Ukranian Department of Defence and specifically the 204th Tactical Aviation Brigade of the Ukrainian Air Force, equipped with the Mig-29 Fulcrum.
The airfield itself is a few kilometers north of the strategically important port of Sevastapol and has a 3,009 mt (9,863 ft) long runway which can also handle any weight aircraft (indeed, it is described as unlimited maximum take off weight).
Perfect for heavily laden transport aircraft needed to supply a potential air bridge between the Russian Black Sea fleet and Russia itself.
There are also reports that Russian jets are flying combat air patrol (CAP) over the Sea of Azov to the east of the Crimean Peninsula right up to Ukrainian airspace; the airspace over Savastopol is closed.
Image credit: Google Earth (top) and FlightRadar24.
Shot from another point of observation, footage of Russian Mil Mi-24 Hind gunships accompanied by some Mi-8 Hip helicopters allegedly invading Ukraine’s airspace in Crimea has emerged.
