Last Tuesday this post by Marcus Godwyn in Moscow appeared on offGuardian. A meeting of heart and mind, I recommend it to anyone struggling to make sense of this war.
Here’s an extract:
The Russian campaign in Syria has resulted in a very low casualty count so far but a very high profile one. All deaths of male and female Russian service personnel in Syria (except secret agents, we may presume) have been publicized on mainstream media. All are felt as a great loss, but some were especially moving. The young reconnaissance soldier who, finding himself hopelessly surrounded by ISIS fighters, called down a missile strike on himself to avoid being captured and to make sure the terrorists were all killed, is one such case. The pilot who was shot down by a Turkish fighter and then machine gunned by Western-backed terrorists as he parachuted to earth hanging helplessly in the air was another. All of Russia saw his legs kicking out as the bullets entered him. It would be very hard, maybe even impossible, for Russian public opinion to accept that all that heroism and sacrifice was for nothing and that Russia must just let the West and Israel overthrow the legitimate government, hand the country over to the Islamist terrorists and their masters, and return home with her tail between her legs to start to re-enforce the Russian borders.
The Russian government has always said that it is in Syria to defeat the terrorists rather than to ‘prop up’ — as the Western media like to say– the Assad government. Recent polls say that if there was an election in Syria tomorrow, Assad would get close to ninety percent, and the fact on the ground is that if he goes, the terrorists will win. A fact that is perfectly understood in Washington, London, Paris, Tel Aviv as it is in Damascus, Moscow, Tehran and Beijing. If that happens, next step, Iran!
Full article here.