Russia’s Bluff. Who is there to call it?

Russia sent its largest navy deployment since the Cold War to Syria for a massive airstrike campaign to conquer once and for all the besieged city of Aleppo. The dispatched fleet contains the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and is escorted by seven other ships: the nuclear-powered battle cruiser Peter the Great, two large anti-submarine warships and four support vessels.

Citeşte varianta în română aici.

It is a bold move by Kremlin, amidst a really tension moment in international politics. The situation in Syria is really complicated. The Assad regime, with Russian air support, are giving rebel-held Eastern Aleppo everything they got. More than a quarter million people are blocked between the rubble of the largest Syrian city in what is now the biggest humanitarian crisis of this century. Thus the fight against terrorist organizations became a secondary issue for Russia. That if you don’t think that double-tapping bombs on hospitals and schools is not a way to tackle terrorism.

Meanwhile, the Islamic State is losing its ground in Syria and Iraq. But, besides the ancient city of Palmyra, is certainly not Russia or Assad’s merit. The US-led Arab-Kurd coalition has done a great job getting rid of the Islamic State at the Syrian border with Turkey. Also, United States’ allies had cleared large parts of Iraq previously occupied by ISIS such as Ramadi, and are closing in on recapturing Mosul. Meanwhile, in one year of fighting terrorists, Russian airstrikes managed to kill almost 4.000 civilians, 1.000 of them being children. To be fair, they also knocked out 3.000 ISIS fighters and 3.000 rebels who were fighting against Assad. But the images with children killed in the bombings of Aleppo had done a great damage to the image of Putin’s war in Syria.

That being said, besides rebels in Syria, who else did Putin’s Russia engaged till now? The Chechen minority in Russia, Georgia, in Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia and Ukraine in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. It is safe to say that the Kremlin acts like a big bully in front of the little kids in school. But what the Russian leadership does when it matches with someone of its own size? Well, they pretend to be the victim. Such as when Turkey shot down a Russian airplane on 24th November 2015.

Is clear that Moscow sends its northern fleet on a tour to the Eastern Mediterranean as a show of strength. Unfortunately, Admiral Kuznetsov’s journey was ridiculed by the Western media and became a meme sensation. Mainly because the aircraft carrier, built in 1984, certainly had better years before its first use in this fall.

The last time Russia sent its Baltic fleet to war was on a half-earth journey, a century ago. In the 1900’s Russia sought a warm-water port for its Imperial ambitions. But the Tsarist Empire got humiliated by a regional power, Japan, in the Russian-Japanese war, between 1904-1905. Now is clear that the Kremlin is using every propaganda to look powerful. But, as it showed last year during the Sukhoi shot down by the Turkish Air Forces, when it comes to a bigger opponent, the real strength of Russia emerges.

The Kremlin regime is bluffing by trying to project itself as a major player and a great power. But is someone there to call the bluff, like Japan did a century ago?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27838034

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3854784/Putin-prepares-rain-hellfire-Aleppo-Russia-s-largest-navy-deployment-Cold-War-heads-Syria-launch-wave-air-strikes-turn-tide-Assad.html

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/09/30/syrian-monitor-russian-airstrikes-killed-300-in-past-year.html

Photo: Russia Insider