i24news

PublishedApril 03rd 2014

            

Putin reportedly supplying Assad with deadlier arms

In another poke in the eyes of the US, Russia ups arms shipments and includes upgraded missiles

Russian President Vladimir Putin is sending more and deadlier arms to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad score a string of advances against insurgents, military experts say.

According to Jane's Defense Weekly, the new shipments include ammunition and spare parts for tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters. They likely also include upgraded missiles. According to Jane's and to Stratfor, a US geopolitical research company, Assad's army started using longer-range Russian Smerch and Uragan rockets for the first time in February.

"Russia is now doing everything to ensure that Assad wins convincingly," Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center told Jane's. "If Russia can show it's capable of carrying out its own foreign policy, regardless of America's wishes, it will be a major achievement for Putin."

On Wednesday, Putin reiterated Moscow's backing in a message sent to his Syrian counterpart, the official SANA news agency reported.

The message was given to Assad by a visiting delegation of the Russia-based Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, headed by the society's chairman, Sergei Stepashin.

In the message, Putin expressed his country's determination to continue supporting Syria in its war against "international terrorism" that he claimed was "backed" by some Western and regional countries.

Syria has since the start of the revolt claimed that regional and Western powers, chiefly Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States, are to blame for a "terrorist" plot targeting the country.

Assad, meeting with the delegation, said in response that Moscow had helped re-establish "a multipolar world."

"The important role that Russia is playing on the international scene is today making a clear contribution towards drawing up a new map for a multipolar world," Assad was quoted by state news agency SANA as saying.

Assad has previously expressed his support for Russia's actions in Crimea, which have drawn Western sanctions and a backlash from NATO.

Russia, Assad added, is helping "achieve international justice, in the interests of states and people who believe in their sovereignty and independent decision-making".

Since the start of the civil war more than three years ago Syria has claimed that regional and Western powers, chiefly Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States, are to blame for a "terrorist" plot targeting the country.

In another move that is raising US hackles, Moscow and Tehran have reportedly hashed out the groundwork for an oil-for-goods deal, estimated to be worth a massive $20 billion.

According to Reuters, the transaction could allow the Islamic Republic to boost its energy exports in defiance of the sanctions the West over its rogue nuclear program.

It was reported in the Russian media earlier this year the two close trading partners were negotiating a barter agreement under which Russia could import up to 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day.

The White House expressed "serious concern" over the rumored swap because it could potentially boost Iran's oil exports by more than 50 percent.