Russian pilot checking bombs before a bombing in Syria (Image: Vedomosti)
Russian forces demonstrated their prowess in the destruction of the opponents of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu says; but ten kinds of Russian weaponry, especially those in high-tech sectors like cruise missiles and communications, did not perform well.
Shoygu’s comments came on Thursday at an expanded collegium of his ministry, at which Vladimir Putin also spoke, and were quickly overshadowed by the Kremlin leader’s claims that Russia is stronger than any potential aggressor and is modernizing its nuclear forces.
At that meeting, Putin said that “we must do a lot to strengthen the nuclear triad… do more with the navy… and perfect the systems of intelligence and communications.” But despite that, he added, he could “with confidence say that today we are stronger than any potential aggressor.”
That provoked a response by US State Department spokesman John Kirby that he “doesn’t think that in the entire history of humanity have there been armed forces… stronger than those of the United States at the present time.”
And that in turn led to another comment by Aleksey Pushkov, chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s Commission on Information Policy. In a Tweet, he said that “the State Department has called the US Armed Forces the strongest in history. But Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan show the impotence of force: the US can win a war but then lose the peace.”
As this back and forth was taking place, an article in Warsaw’s Gazeta Polska suggested that the Russian army is “Potemkin”-like and less capable than many believe, an argument that a Russian commentator has now rejected with vigor.
The Polish analyst, Antoni Rybczyński, says that Moscow’s “lightning-fast annexation of Crimea, participation in the military operations in the Donbas and Syria, increases in defense spending, and orders for new weapons have all generated euphoria [in Russia] and serious concern in the West.”
“One might think,” he continues, “that Russia’s armed forces are a worthy opponent of the US and NATO.” But there are reasons to view the Russian military as less capable than many fear. The Russian military lags behind Western standards, but it can avoid the consequences of that when it is in a position to “choose the time and place of confrontation.”
For example, Rybczyński points out, many of the weapon systems Russia uses are out of date. “The modernization of the Russian army has always been based on Western ideas and technologies. Today, sanctions and the economic crisis are having their effect [and] especially backward is the sector of precision weaponry.”
-
- A wounded Syrian woman arrives at a field hospital following an air strike which hit her home at the outskirts of Aleppo. (Image: Khalil Hamra/AP)
-
- A Syrian man cries while holding the body of his son near Dar El Shifa hospital in Aleppo, Oct. 3, 2016. (Image: Manu Brabo / AP)
-
- Syrian rescue workers evacuate a woman and her two children from a building targeted by a government forces air strike on the northern Syrian town of al-Bab, northeast of Aleppo on Nov. 4, 2016 (Image: Philippe Desmazes / AFP)
-
- Homs, Syria, November 2016 (Image: Yazan Homsy / Reuters)
-
- Victim of Aleppo bombing, October 12, 2016
-
- A Syrian woman carries the body of her infant after he was retrieved from under the rubble of a building following a reported airstrike on September 23, 2016, on the al-Muasalat area in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. (Image: AFP / THAER)
-
- This boy’s name is Omran. His family’s house in Aleppo was hit by one of the Russian bombs that flatten everything within their kill zone. Aleppo, Syria, August 2016 (Photo: Mahmoud Rislan)
-
- A search for survivors at a site hit in December 2015 by Russian airstrikes in Idlib, Syria. “Some Russian airstrikes appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military target and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians. Such attacks may amount to war crimes.” said Philip Luther, director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program. Syrian rebels say most of the strikes have focused on central and northern Syria, where ISIS does not have a strong presence. (Image: Ammar Abdullah/Reuters)
-
- Medics treat injured people inside a field hospital after what activists said were air and missile strikes in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, in this December 13, 2015 photo. (Reuters)
-
- Victims of Russian bombing in Syria. December 2015 (Image: Social media)
-
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
-
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
-
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
-
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
-
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
-
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
-
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
-
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
-
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
-
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
-
- The aftermath of air strikes by a Russian plane in Tabliseh, Syria, on 30 September 2015 YouTube (Image: independent.co.uk)
-
- Russian pilot checking bombs before a bombing in Syria (Image: Vedomosti)
-
- “Syrian People’s Republic,” cartoon by Oleksiy Kustovsky
-
- Poster at a Russian naval base in Tartus, Syria says “It’s time for manliness and real men!”
-
- War in Syria (Yury Kozyrev/Novaya gazeta)
-
- War in Syria (Yury Kozyrev/Novaya gazeta)
-
- War in Syria (Yury Kozyrev/Novaya gazeta)
-
- War in Syria (Yury Kozyrev/Novaya gazeta)
Indeed, he continues, a major reason that Russian forces did so much damage to the Syrian city of Aleppo is that they were using “primitive arms” rather than the more precise ones that fill the arsenals of Western powers. Russia faces similar problems in other weapons sectors as well, including tanks.
“The only element of the arsenal in which Russian can compare with the US and which the Americans fear is nuclear arms,” a fear that is entirely justified but that does not necessarily determine outcomes on particular battlefields.
Not surprisingly, Svobodnaya pressa commentator Vladimir Tuchkov rejects all of Rybczyński’s contentions except the part about nuclear weapons. But he does so in the usual Russian manner of comparing gross numbers of categories of weapons like tanks, something where Russia has an advantage in numbers but not in technology.
Related:
- How bad are things in Russia? Children ask Grandfather Frost to sent them to the dentist
- Putin’s ‘achievement’ in Syria: now Russians the target for Muslim anger, Portnikov says
- A state of war exists between Russia and Ukraine, Portnikov says
- Western defeatism vis-a-vis Russia just as unjustified now as it was in 1979
- Russian pundit calls for Syria-style airstrikes against Ukraine
- Ukraine, Syria, and Putin
- Chechen and Afghan echoes of Putin’s military operation in Syria
Tags: international, military analysis, Nuclear weapons, Putin regime, Russia, Russian militarism, Russian military, Russian military threat, Russian Navy, Sergey Shoygu, Syria
