Skip to content Skip to footer
|

Russian Lawmakers Approve Troops for Syria, Launch Airstrikes Against IS Positions

Russia’s defense ministry says its jets are carrying out airstrikes on Syria against positionsn believed to belong to the Islamic State.

Russia’s defense ministry says its jets are carrying out airstrikes on Syria against positions, vehicles and warehouses believed to belong to the Islamic State.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked for and received parliamentary approval Wednesday to use Russian armed forces in Syria in the fight against Islamic State, the Kremlin’s chief of staff told journalists.

The Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian legislature, unanimously approved Putin’s request, Sergei Ivanov said after the 162-0 vote.

Russia’s constitution requires lawmakers’ endorsement of any use of Russian armed forces abroad and commits the government to cover all “social and financial issues” in support of the troops’ foreign deployment.

“The operation’s military goal is exclusively air support of the Syrian armed forces in their fight against ISIL,” Ivanov said, according to the Tass news agency. He was using the acronym for Islamic State in the Levant, one of several names for the Islamist extremists holding nearly half of Syrian territory.

A Russian official in Baghdad informed US Embassy personnel Wednesday morning that Russian military aircraft would begin flying anti-Islamic State missions over Syria, said a US official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The Russian military requested that US aircraft avoid Syrian airspace during these missions, the official said.

Russia has deployed warplanes, helicopters, tanks and naval forces to western Syria in recent weeks in a move that Western leaders feared might signal the Kremlin’s intent to deploy forces to protect embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, a key Russian ally in the Middle East.

Angry, shocked, overwhelmed? Take action: Support independent media.

We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.

Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”

Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.

It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.

As we undertake this life-sustaining work, we appeal for your support. We have 24 hours left in our fundraiser: Please, if you find value in what we do, join our community of sustainers by making a monthly or one-time gift.