During one month of bombing the terrorists of Islamic State in Syria, Russian combat aircraft have destroyed 1623 facilities of the militants. However, as the chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff Andrei Kartapolov said, it is too early to speak about a victory. The Colonel-General also stated about the readiness of the Russian military to cooperate with all patriotic forces of Syria in the fight against IS and Dzhebhat Al-Nusra.
Syrian journalist Fahed Kamnakesh, who has just returned from Damascus, says that the Syrian people are encouraged by Russia's decision to launch a military operation in Syria: "There are inscriptions in Russian and Arabic: ‘Thank you Russia, thanks to Putin, thanks to the Russian people’ on the streets of Damascus and other Syrian cities that have not been destroyed by the bandits. This really expresses the present state, the morale of the Syrian people, who immediately after September 30th, after the first Russian aircraft sorties, felt that victory would be ours."
Fahed Kamnakesh criticized the actions of the Western coalition in the fight against the IS: "What have the so-called coalition led by the Americans, which includes 62 states, been doing in Syria for a year and two months? Nothing has been done. And to be fair, there are very few effective results. So there is a question – why? No, not because the American army is bad, not because the American planes are imperfect. Yes, because the Americans gave birth to this ISIS. And those who gave birth to ISIS would not destroy it."
According to the journalist, IS acts not only against Syria, but also against Russia: "You see, what are the waves of the so-called Arab Spring? Why did they happen in those Arab countries that are friends with Russia? It was in Libya, Iraq, Syria, almost in Algeria, in Egypt. The Arab Spring did not affected the kingdoms of the Gulf, because there are no other forces. It is a terrorist war, about which, I am sure, in the future, historians and scientists will write many volumes of research on what is a terrorist war. We know that when there is a regular war it means army against army, we know guerrilla war. But this is a terrorist war. It is, in fact, a new type of war, which still needs to be studied."
Speaking about Russia's interests in Syria, Fahed Kamnakesh noted that those are not vested interests, not selfish, not opportunistic: "In Syria we do not have natural resources, there is a little bit of oil and gas for domestic consumption. Russia has an interest in national security. If today Russia was not helping us to kill these terrorists, I would not like to say that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow these bandits could go through the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg. No, this would not happen, there is a strong army, strong security services, they would not allow this to happen. But they want to do it. And so, in fact, Russia destroys these terrorists on the far outskirts. Because, firstly, it is easier technically and the cost is cheaper."
