Russian Troops Broke Out of the Surroundings in Syria
Cruise missiles are launched into the sky right from the Mediterranean Sea. Russian submarine, Velikiy Novgorod launches Kalibr missiles right onto the Jabhat Al-Nusra militants. In 15 minutes, drones detect precise hits. Terrorists' infrastructure objects blow up into the sky.
It hits ammo warehouses and strongholds, which is an act of vengeance. Two days before this launch, bandits began an attack in the de-escalation zone. A post, where Russian military police controlled the reconciliation regime, was under attack.
- The mortars keep firing, it doesn't stop.
First minutes of a battle between Jabhat Al-Nusra and our military police. Early morning in the Idlib province. Mortars fall down every few seconds. An attack is performed by the militants' artillery battery. 29 Russian policemen and Syrian military troops are surrounded.
Half an hour of close fire and there are the first injured on the positions.
- Quick, get the medicine! Right away!
- We held up defense until mortar shells started directly hitting the building. The house's second story was destroyed, so we moved to the first floor. The Syrian Arab Republic soldiers were also there. We held up defenses with their support.
Dust from the mortar rain gave militants advantage. In the smoke screen, the bandits managed to come close to the positions of the Russian MPs. They started firing from large caliber guns, but they fell silent soon.
- We received orders to move out. We received orders to hang on, that there was a corridor with backup. We gathered in our only armored vehicle, the Typhoon armored vehicle, and left.
- The shell blew up about 3 meters away. These are debris from the mortar. It was probably an 80-caliber mortar.
- So it was right there at the post?
- Yes.
Soldiers and policemen, who were involved, are alive. They're now at a base by Hama. They're showing the equipment they used to evacuate. Several Kamaz and Urals are like sieves.
All the equipment of the Russian military police was packed with lead by the terrorists. You can tell how intense the fire was by looking at this water carrier. The driver's cabin is shot-up with bullets, flat tires, and a giant hole in the tank from a 120-mm mortar round.
One of the soldier's helmets was hit by lead right through. The lucky guy got away without a scratch. This is a soldier from the special operations subdivision. He and his 14 colleagues created a corridor to evacuate the policemen. For 7 hours, they fought the enemy, who had the advantage in quantity and equipment.
Here, our special forces engage a group of militants with grenade launchers. Observation through thermal cameras. In just seconds, the group is destroyed by several gun rounds.
- The enemy started attacking around 8 a.m. The attack was like this, the tank was in the front, they spread throughout the front line. Every 500 meters there was a tank, followed by an IFV. The IFV was followed by an armored car. We had guns and grenade guns, and in the first round of the battle, after we burned down 3 IFVs and a tank, we ran out of grenade ammo. The tanks and IFVs kept moving towards us. Let me just say that their advantage was great.
The aviation came just in time. SU-25 attack planes and strike helicopters. Militants definitely didn't expect such a harsh fight. They had to retreat deep into the de-escalation zone.
- They were all nicely equipped in MultiCam. Good equipment, MultiCam masks. These were no regular people. These were probably suicide bombers, because when the bodies were examined, a lot of them had grenades in their hands, ready to blow up.
On the battlefield, hundreds of dead terrorists remain, along with great amounts of ruined equipment. We had no losses, and only 3 injured.
- A miracle, plus our commander. My wife called me and said to give him a big thank you. Anyone will say this, thanks to him. That everyone is alive and well.
- I wouldn't call it luck. It's the coordinated actions of the whole team, that already experienced similar situations.
- So this wasn't a miracle?
- No, I don't believe in miracles.
They don't believe in miracles in the Ministry of Defence of Russia, either. There, it's already been established that this Jabhat Al-Nusra attack was a provocation. Terrorists planned to hold our policemen hostage and use them as collateral later.
The Ministry of Defence believes the US special forces to be the ones who ordered it. This was done to slow down the Syrian Army in a different direction, to the east of Deir-ez-Zor.
Either way, the provocation caused the opposite results. Assad's army, with the support of Russian VKS, didn't just hold the radicals in Idlib. They are freeing even more residential areas from the militants in the east of the republic.
Aleksandr Rudenko, Dmitry Vishkevich, and Andrey Yurchuk. Vesti Weekly, from Syria.