Russia launches cruise missiles 'at ISIS' from warships 900 miles away from Syria.
On Wednesday, October 7, Russians launched 26 cruise missiles from Russian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea. Russian government claims that the missiles successfully hit all targets 900 miles away in Syria, demonstrating an important new capability. Nevertheless, it is reported that a number of cruise missiles fired towards targets in Syria have crashed in Iran. Russia’s Defense Ministry declined to comment on the reports.
Russian state controlled media never mentioned the failures. Instead it has started an aggressive publicity campaign praising the allegedly magnificent demonstration of the power of the Russian new weapons, which in their opinion are “superior to American” one.
According to a Russian State Statistic Institution recent poll, the majority of Russians supports President Putin’s decision to send military aircrafts to strike Syria. It claims 84% of those who regularly monitor the situation in the Middle East and 77% of Moscow residents support Putin’s decision.
On October 8, the radio station Govorit Moskva (“Moscow is speaking”) held a live debate on this hot topic.
Igor Panarin, a prominent political scientist, a full member of the Academy of Military Sciences, Doctor of Political Sciences and KGB officer, was supporting missile attacks.
Igor Panarin
His opponent was Alexander Minkin , a well known democratic journalist.
Alexander Minkin
Such debates are usually concluded with the listeners voting: who is winning?
Alexander Minkin wrote that on the next day after debate he expected to lose the audience vote. Govorit Moskva is a “patriotic” station. Its listeners are politically oriented Moscow residents. Logically at least 80% of them were expected to support launching of the missiles. Minkin wrote that he hoped to score at least 30%. In such situation it would be tremendously good result.
What really happened was: Panarin received 28% of the votes and Minkin – 72%.
How it could this be?
Igor Panarin welcomed launches of cruise missiles. He said that this is a “reasonable military actoin”, an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that Russians have ability to retaliate to any aggresion.
Here are some quotes from Panarin’s speech:
“What happened yesterday must trigger the feeling of great pride in every Russian citizen: 26 Russian cruise missiles flew over Europe and Asia about 1.5 thousand kilometers and hit all their targets. This was the first time in military history for such launch! It is a triumph of Russian military industry.
“I draw your attention to the fact that one of the missiles landed in Syria a mere 70 miles from the US base in Turkey. And the US air defense system that protected the base, hadn’t recorded it! It means, we out performed Americans! This means that technologically we now are superior to the United States! And it’s important conclusions.
“In 1949, several years after Americans dropped atomic bombs to kill about 250 thousands of peaceful citisens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki they planned to drop 50 atomic bombs on USSR: including 8 on Moscow and 7 on Leningrad in order to kill tens of millions of Russians. What stopped these madmen, which were led by fanatical extremist US President Harry Truman? Only the fact that Soviet Union got the atomic weapon of its own and those madmen could expect retributions. What happened yesterday is not less significant then introduction of Russian atomic bomb. Now we can be sure of the happy future of our children and grandchildren.”
There was nothing original in the Panarin’s speech. Today Russian media is full of speeches similar to Panarin’s. However, Alexander Minkin hadn’t opposed Panarin’s ideas. Instead he said that Russia doesn’t need to prove its ability to fight USA. It has proved it many times in such wars as Korea and Vietnam.
“But pay attention to one entirely new factor”, said Minkin.
“From Korea or Vietnam, even from Afghanistan, we were not expecting avenging Jihad terrorists coming to our home. And now we have a situation where our adversaries are not only devoted to the idea of Jihad, terror, but two and a half thousand citizens of Russia are already fighting on the side of ISIS. And those are not only Muslims from the Caucasus. There are possibly ethnic Russians among them.”
Perhaps Russian poll results are not to be trusted?
