Back in September 30 2015, when Vladimir Putin unexpectedly announced the deployment of the Russian air force in Syria, the consensus was that this would prove to be a costly mistake. Critics argued that airstrikes alone would not make any tangible difference to the facts on the ground.
The seemingly endless US-led air campaign against Islamic State (IS) was often cited as proof of this fact – US president, Barack Obama, reiterated this belief in a recent interview The Atlantic, when he said that Russia had “overextended … They’re bleeding. And their economy has contracted for three years in a row, …read more
Source: The Conversation