Russia is sending armed troops to Syria amid escalating violence there, United States military officials told NBC News Friday, in a move certain to frustrate Western efforts to put pressure on the regime of President Bashir Assad. Moscow has sent a ship carrying a small contingent of combat forces to guard Russia’s deep-water port and military base at the Syrian city of Tartus, the US officials said. The U.S. officials also said Russia has not sent additional attack helicopters to the Syrian government, but replacement parts for the Russian helicopters the Syrians are already flying.

It comes after the conflict was declared by France on Wednesday to be a full-blown civil war. The head of the U.N. observers in Syria said Friday a recent spike in bloodshed is derailing the mission to monitor and defuse more than a year of violence and could prompt the unarmed force to pull out. "Violence over the past 10 days has been intensifying willingly by the both parties, with losses on both sides and significant risks to our observers," Maj. Gen. Robert Mood told reporters in Damascus. "The escalating violence is now limiting our ability to observe, verify, report as well as assist in local dialogue and stability projects." Tartus is one of Russia’s most strategically-important assets, giving it military access to the Mediterranean Sea. Russia and China, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council with veto power, frustrated attempts by key Western figures, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to enforce a United Nations peace plan brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan. Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday repeated Moscow's strong opposition to external interference in Syria, said it was not discussing plans for a Syrian political transformation following the exit of Assad.

At a news conference after talks with his Iraqi counterpart, Lavrov said he had seen reports saying U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland had suggested Washington and Moscow were discussing a post-Assad strategy in Syria. "If that was really said then it's not true," Lavrov said. "Such discussions are not being held and cannot be held, because to decide for the Syrian people contradicts our position completely. "We do not get involved in overthrowing regimes - neither through approval of unilateral actions by the U.N. Security Council nor by participation in any political plots." Nuland was asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the United States and Russia were discussing a transition of power similar to that seen in Yemen last year, in which President Ali Abdullah Saleh was replaced by a deputy. "We are continuing to talk about a post-Assad transition strategy in that context," she said.

Lavrov said any broad international talks on Syria must include Iran and must only address ways to create conditions for a political dialogue in Syria - not the content of that dialogue or preconditions such as Assad's exit. Russia, which has come under increasing criticism from the West for arms deliveries to Syria, responded to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's allegations that attack helicopters were on the way from Russia to Syria. In a statement on the Foreign Ministry website, Russia said it had made no new deliveries of military helicopters to Syria but under old contracts it had repaired helicopters sent to Syria "many years ago". "There are no new deliveries of Russian military helicopters to Syria. All arms industry cooperation with Syria is limited to a transfer of defensive arms," the ministry said on its website. "As regards helicopters, planned repairs of (helicopters) delivered to Syria many years ago were conducted earlier," it said. It did not say when they had been repaired or, if they were repaired in Russia, when they were returned to Syria.

Syria's ambassador to Russia said on Thursday Russia had not sent new attack helicopters to Syria. Russia says it is fulfilling existing contracts for air defense systems against external attacks. President Vladimir Putin, due to meet U.S. President Barack Obama next week, said the weapons Russia sends could not be used in civil conflicts. A source close to Russia's arms exporting monopoly Rosoboronexport said Clinton's comments may have referred to helicopters sent to Russia in 2009 for repairs and which may be on the way back to Syria.
The source said on Wednesday at least nine Mi-25 helicopters were sent to Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad to be repaired by Oboronservis, owned by the Defense Ministry.
Russia delivered three different missile systems including Bastion anti-ship missile units and another anti-aircraft system to Syria last year. At least two ships carrying Russian weapons have reportedly travelled to Syria since the beginning of the year, though possibly not on behalf of state arms exporter Rosoboronexport.

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/15/12238938-us-official-russia-sends-troops-to-syria-as-peace-hopes-fade?lite

~Bluetooth:

The sun rises in the EAST and sets in the west.Russia carry go !

koruji: What kind of Russia carry go is that?

Another country is helping a stupid president turn whole towns, in his own country, into ghost places and you are here talking Russia carry go.

It is almost sure now, the case is becoming water tight, that Bashar is going to end up like Ghaddafi or at the ICC. Those are the only two choices left - he should have done the right thing months ago. Even Russia is quick to deny sending any new arms to Syria, and they claim their troops are going there to guard a deep sea port that they had built as a strategic asset in Syria. I wonder how that is a wise move, when a full scale insurgency is breaking out - even that deep sea port will be destroyed in the final analysis.

[s]Russia is simply making sure the next Syrian regime will be firmly pro-Western by these blantant acts of supporting genocide.
[/s]

~Bluetooth:


America has been killing innocent people in Iraq,pakistan,Afghanistan under the guise of fighting terrorists,do you accuse the ''self-acclaimed police of the world'' of genocide ?

koruji: No, this is not the same situation. This is a case of a government inviting a foreign one to come and help kill its own people.[s]

America's actions are usually direct confrontation with existing governments.[/s] Sure Iraq was a mistake, nobody can deny that, but to describe what is going on now as "under the guise of terrorists" is for one to be unduly indiscriminate. The fact is that the terrorists are not just after America, they are after any territory that appears defenseless.

America certainly has its share of blame, but we do ourselves a disfavor to think that it has not represented the best of the choices of where dominant powers would like to take the weaker members of the world community. If Russia cares about the Syrian people they would advice Bashar to do what is right, but they can't talk like that because Mr. Vladmir has being taking Russians for a ride - in a more benign way I must admit - by switching the presidency and prime minister position with one of his lackies since 2000. At least he has the good sense of organizing elections that people can see was conducted. What is stopping Bashar from conducting elections since the dispute broke out during the Arab spring - Russia had its elections after that same uprising.

Russia is simply being used, and of course the USA would like to use Syria. So the real blame are the countries with leaders that do not have common sense.

It is good to keep in mind who rescued muslims in Serbia, when the rest of the world decided to turn a blind eye to the massive slaughter. For Osama Bin Laden of rotten memory to ignore that and seek to attack that world power for whatever reason, as a muslim hating satan, is to ask for wrath - and wrath is what they got, and will keep getting as long as they keep designing schemes of brutal, backward, religious world domination.


I don't see any use of power, when your countrymen are slaughtered in the 100s for asking your to let them have a say in their own affairs - that is the bottom line.

koruji: What kind of Russia carry go is that?
Another country is helping a stupid president turn whole towns, in his own country, into ghost places and you are here talking Russia carry go.

It is almost sure now, the case is becoming water tight, that Bashar is going to end up like Ghaddafi or at the ICC. Those are the only two choices left - he should have done the right thing months ago. Even Russia is quick to deny sending any new arms to Syria, and they claim their troops are going there to guard a deep sea port that they had built as a strategic asset in Syria. I wonder how that is a wise move, when a full scale insurgency is breaking out - even that deep sea port will be destroyed in the final analysis.

Russia is simply making sure the next Syrian regime will be firmly pro-Western by these blantant acts of supporting genocide.

mykejones: This is the complex conflit/unrest I've yet seen in my life time. It's over a year since it started,hundreds of lives lost,thousands more homeless, and millions,in dollars,lost in this insurgence,and yet,NATO and the world police(USA) still don't think it's time they use military intervention?
Am I 2 believe there's a certain country (Rusia) evryone is trying to avoid? Or are the allies of this country so strong that the US shy away from policing this part of the world?
Libya wasn't this bad before the country was toppled..so what's stoppin this one? What's in this big picture that's so important than human lives?
This is worrisome!

kodewrita: It amazes me that there are still people who will support tyrants like ghadaffi or assad all because of rabid anti american sentiment. People are being massacred yet you are shouting carry go.

Russia flies anti-air, anti-ship missiles to Assad as its fleet heads to Tartus

Moscow is using the time up until Russian President Vladimir Putin faces US President Barack Obama across the G20 conference table in Los Cabos, Mexico Sunday, June 17 - or in its corridors - to ship sophisticated arms to Syria able to prevent a no-fly zone and a fleet of warships to the Mediterranean port of Tartus.

While Pentagon sources Friday disclosed the approach of a “small contingent” of Russian warships to Tartus, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources have discovered that heading for the Russian base at this Syrian port is a Russian fleet that includes Ropucha-toad or Project 775 class landing-craft carrying Russian marines. Each craft can carry 250 marine personnel and 500-ton armored vehicles.

And flying overhead are Russian air transports that are touching down at Syrian air bases bearing, according to our sources, a variety of sophisticated munitions for the Syrian army: advanced Russian Pantsyr-S1 anti-air missiles capable of hitting fighter-bombers flying at an altitude of 12 kilometers and cruise missiles; self-propelled medium range anti-air Buk-M2 missiles (NATO codenamed SA-11). They are capable of downing aircraft flying at an altitude of 14 kilometers and Mach 32 speed; and shore-based Bastion anti-ship missiles which can reach vessels sailing 300 kilometers out to sea.

Russia is, in a word, supplying Bashar Assad, his regime and his army, with the very weapons they may need for warding off Western and Arab air efforts to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, while at the same time enabling him to repel seaborne assaults by his foes from the Mediterranean. Since Syrian units have not been trained in the use of these advanced weapons, they are mostly likely coming with Russian technical teams to operate them - although they would be presented as “instructors.”

The Russians are not trying to conceal their military intervention in Syria in support of the Assad regime.

Friday, June 16, Anatoly P. Isaykin, director of Rosoboronexport (the Russian state arms export authority) said quite openly: I would like to say these mechanisms are really good means of defense, a reliable defense against attacks from air or sea. This is not a threat, but whoever is planning an attack should think about this.” The next day, Saturday, a source in the Russian General Staff told the Itar-Tass government news agency, “Several warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, including large landing ships with marines aboard, are fully prepared to take to the sea in case it is necessary to protect the Russian logistics base in Tartus, Syria, since it is a zone of the Fleet’s responsibility.”

DEBKAfile’s sources in Washington, Moscow and the Persian Gulf expect the Russian and US presidents to get together in the course of the G20 summit for a meeting that will determine whether or not the US and its European and Arab allies go forward with their planned military intervention in Syria. Agreement between the two presidents on their Syria and Iran policies could arrest this plan, whereas their failure to agree would quicken its pace.

http://debka.com/article/22090/Russia-flies-anti-air-anti-ship-missiles-to-Assad-as-its-fleet-heads-to-Tartus

kodewrita: It amazes me that there are still people who will support tyrants like ghadaffi or assad all because of rabid anti american sentiment. People are being massacred yet you are shouting carry go.

cap28: Shymmex you are on point with your reference source - Debkafile is a very authentic source of intel as they have close links with israeli intelligence.

I only wish Russia and China had not abstained from casting their vote in respect of the no fly zone over Libya when NATO was planning to invade and destroy Libya. The US govt is openly financing and arming the so called Free Syrian army who were responsible for massacring those Syrian children - this heinous act was done in order to provoke the Syrian people to overthrow Assad but it is not working because the Syrian people know what the satanic forces of the US govt are capable of.

The US are also sending thousands of militant terrorist groups like Al Qaeda into Syria who are trying to overthrow Assad just as they did to Qadaffi in Libya.


Here is a brilliant analysis of the situation in Syria by Professor Michel Chossudovsk he confirms that the war plans between Russia and America are at an advanced stage - this war will trigger world war 3!

America - you are trying to bite off more than you can chew ! Russia is a nuclear power just like you and has never been defeated in any war.


www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cGYTM9-DSEI#!

cap28: Shymmex you are on point with your reference source - Debkafile is a very authentic source of intel as they have close links with israeli intelligence.

I only wish Russia and China had not abstained from casting their vote in respect of the no fly zone over Libya when NATO was planning to invade and destroy Libya. The US govt is openly financing and arming the so called Free Syrian army who were responsible for massacring those Syrian children - this heinous act was done in order to provoke the Syrian people to overthrow Assad but it is not working because the Syrian people know what the satanic forces of the US govt are capable of.

The US are also sending thousands of militant terrorist groups like Al Qaeda into Syria who are trying to overthrow Assad just as they did to Qadaffi in Libya.


Here is a brilliant analysis of the situation in Syria by Professor Michel Chossudovsk he confirms that the war plans between Russia and America are at an advanced stage - this war will trigger world war 3!

America - you are trying to bite off more than you can chew ! Russia is a nuclear power just like you and has never been defeated in any war.


www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cGYTM9-DSEI#!