Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Russian military operations in Syria had been very beneficial because they had revealed flaws in Russian jets and helicopters. During a meeting in the Russian city of Sochi on 15 May, Putin said that “the use of Russian planes in combat in Syria has revealed technical faults in fighter jets and helicopters… It would have been impossible to uncover them in normal training.” Putin apparently felt no remorse in speaking of Syria as a testing ground for Russian weapons, with these being corrected and improved by bombing the Syrian people, destroying the country's infrastructure and spreading death and destruction. It had been hoped that Putin would be responsive to UN Security Council Resolutions for a ceasefire in Syria, ending the regime's war against its own people and seeing a transition to political change that would transform the country into a democratic state. Instead, he declared that the world now knew the names of all the main Russian weapons after the operations in Syria. He also told the Russian parliament a year ago of the effectiveness of the ongoing operations in Syria since they showcased Russia's offensive and defensive capabilities. This is not the first time that Russia has boasted about testing its weapons in Syria. Deputy Defence Minister Yury Borisov said in August 2017 that more than 600 new weapons had been tried out in the country. “It is no exaggeration to say that experts from our military industrial complex were by our side in Syria,” Borisov said. “They pinpointed flaws and amended the designs of new weapons and equipment as soon as malfunctions were discovered in action.” General Igor Makushev, head of the Russian Armed Forces Scientific Committee, said last year that “for the first time in the history of the Russian navy, long-distance missiles were used from submarines. Using high-precision weapons at sea has allowed us to hit targets 1,500 km away with precision.” He told a roundtable meeting that “testing high-precision long-range missiles in Syria has confirmed our ability to deploy the Russian Navy to remote areas in the world in combat ready shape.” According to Russian statistics, Moscow has tested more than 600 types of new military weapons and equipment in Syria, and 90 per cent of them have met expectations. Russian military personnel have practised using long-range weapons, and more than 14,000 tests have taken place in Syria since Russia intervened militarily in September 2015 with the aim of advancing its military capabilities to meet global competitors. Russia's Air Force has carried out more than 45,000 air strikes in Syria since 2015, including 125,000 bombings of land targets. A paper published by the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) states that Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and Mi-35M combat helicopters have been used, while Mi-8, Mil Mi-24 and Mil Mi-28 helicopters and BMPT-72 tanks have been deployed for the first time abroad. A Russian report has revealed that Moscow sent two advanced fifth-generation Sukhoi-57 fighter jets to Syria during a testing stage before enlisting them for service, the aim being to test radar equipment in real combat conditions. According to the 2018 report of the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a NGO, up until September 2018 Russia had committed at least 321 massacres, killing more than 6,200 civilians, one third of them children, attacked and destroyed 954 targets, including hospitals, schools, markets and aid convoys. It has used banned cluster bombs more than 232 times, incendiary weapons 125 times, and caused the displacement of 2.7 million people. Moscow claims it is fighting “terrorism” in Syria, with Vladimir Shamanov, chair of the Russian parliament's Defence Committee, saying that Russia's Air Force had killed 60,000 terrorist fighters including 3,000 originally from Russia. However, these numbers contradict international human-rights reports, which do not indicate so many “terrorist” fighters in Syria, their being essentially members of the Islamic State (IS) group and the Al-Nusra Front. Russia wants to make as many gains from the Syrian conflict as possible, boost its arms sales around the world, develop its military arsenal and show its competitors and potential customers its defence capabilities. There has been a 3.7-fold increase in new Russian weapons in recent years. Russia has a 25 per cent share of the world's weapons exports, and Syria has become the testing ground for these weapons, as well as for training and experimenting. Russia is not concerned if these weapons malfunction or fail, and it does not care if they kill women and children, or incinerate medical facilities in areas under opposition control, killing both patients and doctors. Instead, it is only interested in marketing its weapons and manufacturing a new generation of advanced combat weapons after using up stockpiles of outdated ones in the war against the Syrians. Orders for Russian weapons have now reached some $50 billion, and according to the Russian media it can cover 30 per cent of global demand for military planes, which is more than the share of the US. Possible clients have exponentially increased in the past three years, and they have gained confidence in Russian weapons after they were tested against the Syrian people. The Russian newspaper Kommersant has reported a source close to the Russian Military Exports Authority as saying that “in Syria, we have proved we have high combat capabilities and advanced military technology to attract buyers. And we have tested more than half our Navy under difficult combat conditions.” Sergey Smirnov, director of the Russian Chkalov Novosibirsk military aircraft plant, said that “after the start of the Russian military campaign in Syria, Algeria ordered 12 Su-32 fighter bombers in December 2015. The military operations in Syria encouraged it to buy and showcase the deal.” Meanwhile, Russia's media machine is exaggerating the types of Russian weapons available. Moscow is using its official media to market its weapons, while using the Syrians as guinea pigs. Russia's testing of its weapons in Syria is a war crime and a sordid way to achieve its political, strategic and financial goals. This being so, it will be impossible to trust any political solution to the Syrian conflict proposed by Russia, no matter how nicely wrapped and presentable it might appear to be.
