Russia’s bombing of Syria
Prior to President Putin’s visit to US the Russian statistical Levada Center conducted a sociological research of the attitude of Russians to situation in Syria. Almost a half of Russians believed that in Syria there is a civil war and 32% believed a war, triggered by the West, was being waged against the legitimate Assad regime. 58% said that IS is a threat to the region and to the world. 41% had heard about Russians volunteers in IS and were concerned about it, though 35% had never heard anything about such Russian volunteers.
Only 14% of respondents answered that Russia should provide direct military support to Assad regime (69% were against it), 43% were for providing arms and consultations.
This attitude is doomed to alter soon, as the huge Russian propaganda machine is aimed to create the change. Prior to Putin leaving to the United States for the UN session, most of Russian newscast and political TV programs mere devoted to criticizing Ukraine and USA, cursing “fascist junta” in Kiev. Now the subject of TV programs changed 100%. Ukraine is not the subject anymore. Its place is taken by the victories of Russian “peacemakers” over terrorists in Syria.
On October 4, the news site Vesti.ru, most popular in Russia, opened with the headline: “MEDIA: Syrians consider Russians to be heroes and savers.”
Under this title the site provided a description of the situation in the area controlled by the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, which supposed to be quoted from the British newspaper The Observer:
“People encounter foreigners, which are rarely appear in the area, with Russian joyful greeting ‘Good day!’ They thank President Putin, which they believe will save them from terrorism.
“The residents don’t care whether airstrikes applied on militant positions of ‘Islamic state’ or other rebel groups – in this part of the country, everybody who is fighting with the authorities is perceived as terrorists. In addition, many locals believe that in reality the West supports the IS, and frivolously call their fight a fight against terrorists, while ‘Russians are determined to win.’”
I tried hard to find this quote in The Observer, but couldn’t. Instead of that I found very different statement:
“The reaction of the civilians in these areas is the loss of faith in America and the policies of Obama and Putin. Everybody is talking about a de facto US-Russian-Assad alliance against the Syrian people. These issues will increase terrorism, not reduce it.“
Some especially nationalistic authors of the Russian state controlled media are trying to present the issue of Russians in Syria in much broader terms, than just a fight against terrorism.
Here is a statement made by Semyon Bagdasarov, a prominent Russian politician, member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, made in the program of Russian State TV:
Bagdasarov literary claimed that Syria is Russian Land, because Christianity was brought to Russia by monks from Antiochia, an Ancient Greeks province or City supposedly located somewhere in the territory of contemporary Syria.
Bagdasarov’s claim could be considered silly, if it wasn’t supported by many publications in Russian Internet, quoting opinions of authorities of the past. Here is one of such statements, made in 1915 by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), one of the most prominent functionaries of Russian Orthodox Church in 20th Century:
“Syria and Palestine have total of only 500 million Orthodox Christians in the two Patriarchates, almost all of them Arabs. Of course, their language should be preserved, as well as their parish communities, but they should not interfere with the future settlements of RUSSIAN farmers and craftsmen, which will clean the desert, and free the territory from Muslim settlements, which, however, will be deserted quickly, when they’ll become RUSSIAN possession. There will be the place for purely RUSSIAN culture, for RUSSIAN speech and for RUSSIAN trade and industry. “
Officially Russian Orthodox Church today doesn’t support such ideas. Nevertheless the Church strongly supports all actions of Putin.
Here is the statement made by Vsevolod Chaplin, the press representative of Russian Orthodox Church:
“The Government’s decision is consistent with international law and the mentality of our people, that is for peacekeeping, the moral, the active role that Russia has always played in different parts of the world, especially in the Middle East… The fight against terrorism, the struggle for justice and peace, for the dignity of people who are experiencing the challenge of terrorism – is the sacred struggle.”
The official representatives of other religions, which have many congregations in Russia, also supported Putin’s actions in Syria. But it doesn’t mean this politics is supported by all the members of these communities.
Russian Internet has many times reposted the statement of Sergei Hirschfeld, the editor in chief of the Russian language Ninth Channel of Israeli TV. Hirschfeld criticized the Federation’s of Jewish Communities of Russia support of Putin’s action:
“The bottom line is that the presence of Russian military severely restricts the room for maneuver for the IDF [Israel Defense Force], it binds our hands. For the last thing we need is to down by mistake several Russian aircrafts, which are half-blind in the sky; or to kill a platoon, or two, or three of Russian soldiers. That is why Netanyahu flew to Moscow!
“And when the next time Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems
once again will be found in the Hezbollah’s hands, we would like to be sure that they are not accompanied by crews of Russian officers. For, again, we do not want to burn them along with this iron. That’s all.
“What happened, in fact, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia has supported a sharp weakening of the IDF”
S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems
Official organizations of Russian Muslims supported bombing of Syria. The President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov even addressed Putin with a proposal to start not only bombing Syria but also land operations over there. He proposed to send to Syria Chechen solders, who, in his opinion, would easily end terrorism over there and would establish order, the way he established order in Chechnya.
Nevertheless there is a lot of Russian Muslim activists who have different views.
That’s how a Muslim activist Ali Charinsky expressed the feelings of Russian Muslims:
“Some of us are enraged, some are saddened, generally, nobody is happy about it. Assad is known for his crimes against the Muslims of Syria. We, Muslims are like a single organism, and cannot enjoy it. “
Charinsky notes that most of Russian Muslims disagree with the bombing of Syria, but they are afraid to express their protest.
Russian liberal anti-Putin Internet mostly doesn’t support Putin’s politics in Syria.
Here is a statement of a popular journalist Arcady Babchenko:
“We can assume that there will be further deterioration of Russian relations with Saudi Arabia, the United States, Israel, further bad news in the oil market, the further isolation, further delivery of arms to Assad’s enemies by the rest of the world, – in short, a kind of mixture of Afghanistan, Vietnam, and even Korea.
“… It is obvious that we are meddling not into the fight against IS along with the rest of the world community over there. We are meddling into the fight for Assad. And – against the United States. This means that the pressure on us will only strengthen.
“Next, ‘a limited contingent of soldiers-internationalists’ will be introduced by us, as it was in case of Afghanistan. Other options simply are not possible by now. And that means – hello, new Afghanistan. But it will be worse than Afghanistan. Because here are different opponents, and different weapons, and world balance of forces is different, and the total voltage is different, and the load of dead bodies coming to Russia will be different.”
