Russia admits Iskander fired in Syria

After more than a year of speculation about the presence of Iskander missiles in Syria, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has officially acknowledged this presence.

According to Southfront, on December 22, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu officially announced that the country's strategic missile forces used Iskander short-range ballistic missiles in the fight against terrorists in Syria.

Mr. Shoigu's statement is also the first time Russia has officially confirmed the deployment and use of this type of ballistic missile in Syria. However, the Russian Defense Minister did not disclose any further information about the deployment location or the number of Iskanders there.

The presence of Iskander in Syria is causing headaches for the US.

It is known that before Russia admitted to deploying Iskander in Syria, at the end of 2016, high-resolution satellite images taken by ISI provided authentic evidence of the appearance of this special weapon.

Based on the images released by ISI, there are two Iskander missile launchers parked next to the runway in the northeastern area of ​​the airport at Hmeymim base.

After studying the photos provided by ISI, many experts believe that Russia is using camouflage to hide the presence of missiles. In addition, the weather in Latakia is rainy, so the Russian army has covered the camouflage net with tarpaulin.

Information about Russia sending Iskander missiles to Syria appeared almost at the same time Moscow announced the reduction of military forces there. However, this is the second time that speculation about the appearance of Iskander in Syria has appeared, after the first time in March 2016 in a video summarizing the Russian military campaign in Syria.

The video broadcast by Star TV channel shows that after the An-124 Ruslan transport plane took off on the runway, the Iskander tactical missile was revealed outside the runway, close to the empty area of ​​Hmeymim airport.

Earlier, according to the Military-informant website, right before President Putin announced the withdrawal of troops, Russia sent a mysterious weapon system to Syria. The source said that two military transport planes quietly landed at the Hmeymim airbase in the dark of night.

Clip of Russia practicing with Iskander-M

Immediately, military equipment including disassembled missile parts and specialized MZKT trucks were unloaded from the two aircraft. Russia carefully covered two 6-wheeled combat vehicles covered with tarpaulins and 3 specialized trucks to quickly leave the airport area. This convoy was escorted by armored combat vehicles.

According to Military-informant's guess, this is almost certainly Russia's latest tactical ballistic missile system, the Iskander-M, with a range of up to 500km, because this missile system is often deployed by Russia on the MZKT-7930 military truck chassis.

And finally, all the speculation was cleared up when the head of the Russian Defense Ministry himself admitted that the country's strategic missile force had deployed Iskander to Syria and used them to attack terrorist targets.

According to Baodatviet.vn