Russian Air-Strikes Are Now Targeting Syrian Civilian Areas In Rebel Held Territories

Michael Weiss, Daily Beast: What It’s Like to Have Russian Jets Bomb the Crap Out of Your Town

Putin’s military says its only going after terrorists in Syria. But the view from Aleppo City is very different. Residents are wondering why their marketplaces are being bombed.

“When I’m sitting here and we hear a plane, which is a lot now, I know from the sound. If the plane is above us—you can tell if it’s above you, because that’s when it’s the loudest—and if it’s a Russian plane, then it doesn’t attack where we are. It attacks two or three kilometers away.”

Rami Jarrah is telling me how he distinguishes which government is now bombing civilians in Syria’s Aleppo City. It’s a question that used to answer itself—but no more, given the presence of Syrian, Russian, and coalition aircraft in the skies. Syrian jets, he says, once flew so low that you could actually see the pilots in the cockpits; Russian fixed-wing aircraft fly at much higher altitudes such that they look like crosses or plus-signs in the clouds. They fire from far away, the better to evade the bullets of the Dushka (the name means “sweetie” in Russian), a Soviet-era antiaircraft machine gun, which is typically all anti-Assad rebels have to deter helicopters and attack jets, sometimes successfully.

WNU Editor: Civilians are the ones who are experiencing the brunt of this war .... and have been for four years .... but it appears that the Russians are now adding to this misery.