Tag Archives: Russia

Syrian government forces enter Islamic State-held Palmyra

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces fought their way into Palmyra on Thursday as the army backed by Russian air cover sought to recapture the historic city from Islamic State (IS) insurgents, Syrian state TV and a monitoring group said.

The Syrian army earlier this month launched a concerted offensive to retake Palmyra, which the ultra-hardline Islamist militants seized in May 2015, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

Islamic State has blown up ancient temples and tombs since capturing Palmyra, something the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO has called a war crime. The city, located at a crossroads in central Syria, is surrounded mostly by desert.

The state-run news channel Ikhbariya broadcast images from just outside Palmyra on Thursday and said government fighters had taken over a hotel district in the west.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had advanced into the hotel district just to the southwest of the city and reached the start of a residential area, after a rapid advance the day before brought the army and its allies right up to its outskirts.

A soldier interviewed by Ikhbariya said the army and its allies would press forward beyond Palmyra.

“We say to those gunmen, we are advancing to Palmyra, and to what’s beyond Palmyra, and God willing to Raqqa, the center of the Daesh gangs,” he said, referring to Islamic State’s de facto capital in northern Syria.

The state news agency SANA showed warplanes flying overhead, helicopters firing missiles, and soldiers and armored vehicles approaching Palmyra.

Civilians began fleeing after Islamic State fighters told them via loudspeakers to leave the center as fighting drew closer, the Observatory said. The Observatory monitors the war using a network of sources on the ground.

The capture of Palmyra and advances further eastwards into Deir al-Zor would mark the most significant Syrian government gain against Islamic State since the start of Russia’s military intervention last September.

With Russia’s help, Damascus has already taken back some ground from IS, notably east of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and commercial hub before the war.

(Reporting by John Davison, Dominic Evans and Lisa Barrington; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

IEA says OPEC, Russia oil output freeze deal may be ‘meaningless’

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A deal among some OPEC producers and Russia to freeze production is perhaps “meaningless” as Saudi Arabia is the only country with the ability to increase output, a senior executive from the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

Brent crude futures are up more than 50 percent from a 12-year low near $27 a barrel hit early this year, bouncing back after Russia and OPEC’s Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Qatar struck an agreement last month to keep output at January levels.

Qatar has invited all 13 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and major non-OPEC producers to Doha on April 17 for another round of talks to widen the production freeze deal.

“Amongst the group of countries (participating in the meeting) that we’re aware of, only Saudi Arabia has any ability to increase its production,” said Neil Atkinson, head of the IEA’s oil industry and markets division, at an industry event.

“So a freeze on production is perhaps rather meaningless. It’s more some kind of gesture which perhaps is aimed … to build confidence that there will be stability in oil prices.”

Libya has joined Iran in snubbing the initiative, and the absence of the two OPEC producers – both with ample room to increase output – would limit the impact of any success in broadening the freeze at the April meeting.

The rise in output from Iran in the first quarter post-sanctions has been in line with IEA’s expectation of 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), Atkinson said, adding that Tehran’s output could rise again by the same amount by the third quarter.

“Iran has not exactly been flooding the market with lots more oil. It seems to be far more measured,” Atkinson said.

It will take a while for Iran to regain its pre-sanctions share in Europe, where markets have been taken over by Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq, he added.

The IEA, energy watchdog for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), expects the wide gap between supply and demand to narrow later this year, paving the way for an oil price recovery in 2017.

“We think the worst is over for prices … Today’s prices may not be sustainable at exactly $40 a barrel, but in this mid-$30s and upward range, we think there will be some support unless there’s a major change in fundamentals,” Atkinson said.

(Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Tom Hogue)

United States to press Russia on future of Syria’s Assad

MOSCOW/GENEVA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to press President Vladimir Putin on how Russia sees a future political transition in Syria and the fate of President Bashar al-Assad.

With a fragile truce in place in Syria and warring sides attending peace talks in Geneva, Kerry wants to “get down to brass tacks” on the question of Assad’s future, a State Department official said.

While the United States want Assad to step aside, Russia says only the Syrian people can decide his fate at the ballot box and has bristled at any talk of regime change.

Kerry is holding talks with Putin at the Kremlin on Thursday, in a meeting arranged after the Russian leader’s surprise announcement on March 14 that he was partially withdrawing his forces from Syria.

“The Secretary would like to now really hear where President Putin is in his thinking … on a political transition” in Syria, the official said as Kerry arrived in Moscow.

“Obviously what we are looking for, and what we have been looking for, is how we are going to transition Syria away from Assad’s leadership,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After five years of conflict that has killed over 250,000 people and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis, Washington and Moscow reached a deal three weeks ago for a cessation of hostilities and delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

The State Department official said meetings with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would evaluate the status of the ceasefire and try to “get on the same page” about ending violations and increasing humanitarian assistance.

UNILATERAL THREAT

Russia this week threatened to act unilaterally against those who violate the ceasefire unless it reached a deal with the United States on ways to detect and prevent truce breaches.

The Syrian opposition has accused government forces of renewing sieges and stepping up a campaign of barrel-bombing across the country.

In Geneva, where warring sides are a week into talks on ending the conflict, government officials have rejected any discussion on the fate of Assad, who opposition leaders say must go as part of any transition.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Syria peace talks were always going to be long and difficult, and it was too early to talk about patience running out on any side.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Tuesday he hoped the U.S-Russia meeting would give an impetus to the peace talks where the divisive issue of a political transition is stalling progress.

But the State Department official played down expectations that the meeting would have an immediate impact on the talks, which adjourn on Thursday with the next round expected in early April.

A Syrian activist at the talks, Jihad Makdissi, said de Mistura was planning to issue a paper on a “potential common vision”.

The Syrian government delegation said the U.N. envoy had handed them a document which they would study on their return to Damascus. No details of either paper were disclosed.

However, the United Nations said the Syrian government had given verbal assurances that aid convoys can go into three or four areas that its forces are besieging.

U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said the United Nations had been allowed to enter eight or nine of the 11 areas it had asked to supply with aid, including three or four besieged areas.

But it had not been allowed to go into the town of Daraya, where the World Food Programme has said some people have been reduced to eating grass.

PALMYRA OFFENSIVE

On the battlefield, Syrian government forces and their allies were reported to have pushed forward against Islamic State fighters to reach the outskirts of the historic city of Palmyra on Wednesday.

State news agency SANA quoted a military source who said the army and allied militia advanced in the hills outside Palmyra and toward a road junction “after eliminating the last terrorist Daesh groups there”, referring to Islamic State fighters. Islamic State is not covered by the truce agreement.

The Syrian army is trying to recapture Palmyra, which Islamic State seized in May, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

Clashes raged around Palmyra after government forces took control of most of a nearby hill with air cover from Syrian and Russian warplanes, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Russia has withdrawn around half of its air force in Syria, according to Reuters calculations based on state TV footage, some of which was not broadcast.

But Moscow has maintained a group of Su-24 bombers at its Latakia air base and deployed a number of advanced attack helicopters, meaning it is able to continue a reduced number of air strikes in the country.

Operating from Russia’s Shayrat air base southeast of Homs, the helicopter force will be used to secure territory gains around Aleppo and support the Syrian army offensive against Islamic State in Palmyra, Western officials said.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov, Jack Stubbs, John Davison, Dominic Evans, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles; Writing by Giles Elgood, editing by Peter Millership)

Ukraine to call up 10,000 soldiers in new mobilization drive

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s military will call up some 10,000 men and seek volunteers to replace some of the 45,000 soldiers who are due to return home after more than a year on the front lines in the separatist east, President Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday.

A February 2015 ceasefire failed to completely halt the conflict with pro-Russian rebels that is entering its third year. Sixteen soldiers have been killed so far in March – the army’s highest monthly death toll since August, according to Reuters calculations based on military data.

Almost all Ukrainian men have to do at least one year of military service and can then be called up to fight until they reach 60 years of age.

But as well that compulsory mobilization, the government is trying to tempt them to volunteer for active duty, increasing salaries to at least 7,000 hryvnia ($275) per month, well above the minimum wage of around 1,400 hryvnia.

Around 13,000 servicemen have been signed up under such contracts this year, part of drive to build a professional army capable of withstanding what Ukraine sees as a long-standing threat from Russia.

“Next year I am sure there will be further (wage) growth to raise not only the moral but also the financial attractiveness of military service,” President Poroshenko said at a meeting with military personnel.

Around 250,000 men currently serve in the military across Ukraine. While it is illegal to dodge the compulsory mobilization drives, some potential recruits have done so by bribing officials or simply leaving the country.

Over 9,000 civilians and soldiers have been killed since fighting between Ukrainian troops and rebels seeking independence from Kiev erupted in April 2014.

(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Plane crashes in Russia, all 62 people on board killed

MOSCOW/DUBAI (Reuters) – All 62 people aboard a passenger jet flying from Dubai to southern Russia were killed when their plane crashed on its second attempt to land at Rostov-on-Don airport on Saturday, Russian officials said.

Russia’s emergencies ministry said the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 operated by Dubai-based budget carrier Flydubai, crashed at 3:40 a.m. Most of those on board were Russian.

“The aircraft hit the ground and broke into pieces,” the Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement on its website. “There were 55 passengers aboard and seven crew members. They all died.”

Both of the plane’s flight recorders have been recovered undamaged, the committee said in a statement.

According to the independent U.S.-based Flight Safety Foundation, there was strong wind at the airport with a speed of 43 kilometers per hour, with gusts up to 69 kilometers, but visibility was reasonable.

“Different versions of what happened are being looked into, including crew error, a technical failure and bad weather conditions,” the committee said.

It said the plane was in a mid-air holding pattern for more than two hours. The crash occurred more than two hours after the plane, flight number FZ981, was scheduled to land.

Russia’s Interfax news agency cited a source in the emergency services as saying the pilot changed his mind about landing on the approach to the airport.

“For an unknown reason, several minutes before the landing, the pilot reconsidered and decided to make another circuit, but wasn’t able to,” Interfax quoted the source as saying.

Flydubai’s CEO Ghaith al-Ghaith told a news conference in the Gulf Arab emirate that it was “too early” to determine the cause of the crash.

“We will have information about the circumstances of the incident and the black box in the future, and an investigation is being conducted in cooperation with the Russian authorities and we are waiting to see the results,” Ghaith said.

ALERT

Security officials in the Middle East are on heightened alert for militant threats to aviation following the Islamic State claim of responsibility for downing a Russian passenger plane over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in late October, in which all 224 people on board died.

Sergei Melnichenko, head of Aviation Safety consultancy in Moscow, said so far little pointed to an act of terrorism.

“Nothing points to that,” Melnichenko said. “But nothing can be fully ruled out until a complete decryption of the flight recorders is done.”

According to the flight tracker Flightradar24, an Aeroflot flight SU1166 from Moscow made three landing attempts in Rostov before being diverted. It landed at 11:15 p.m. in Russia’s Krasnodar.

A source familiar with the investigation told Reuters that there was no weather-related ban on landing at the airport. “We consider all possible causes, but no one is even talking now about the possibility of a terrorist attack,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

Dubai’s civil aviation authority said it was sending an investigative team to Russia, president Ismail al Hosani told reporters.

Under international aviation rules, the investigation will be led by Russia’s air crash safety investigation agency with representatives from the United States, where the jet was made and the United Arab Emirates where the airline is based.

Boeing will be appointed as technical advisers to the U.S. investigation team.

INTERNATIONAL CREW, MOSTLY RUSSIAN PASSENGERS

The Flydubai airline had a clean safety record before the accident. It started flying in June 2009, with a fleet of new Boeing 737s, one of the world’s most widely flown planes.

It suffered an incident when one of its planes was shot at while landing at Baghdad airport on Jan. 27, 2015.

The aircraft that crashed was just over five years old.

The Flydubai plane came down inside the airport’s perimeter, about 250 meters short of the start of the runway.

The plane’s wing hit the ground on its second attempt to land and burst into flames, the Rostov region’s emergency ministry said in a statement. But Russian news agencies cited a source in the emergency services saying that the plane fell vertically and hit the ground on its nose.

Grainy pictures from a security camera pointing towards the airport, which were broadcast on Russian television, showed a large explosion at ground level, with flames and sparks leaping high into the air.

Ghaith of Flydubai said that he had no information to indicate that the pilot had issued a distress call. Both the pilot and co-pilot had over 5,000 hours of flight experience each, he said.

There was one Russian among the seven-person crew, the Russian emergency ministry said in a statement. The pilot was Cypriot, the co-pilot and another crew member Spanish and the other three were from Seychelles, Colombia and Kyrgyzstan.

Flydubai said in a statement that there were 44 Russians among the 55 passengers, eight Ukrainians, two Indians and one Uzbek. Four children were among the dead.

Russian agencies cited Rostov’s government representative as saying that the remains of those killed had been taken to a local morgue and families would able to identify them on Sunday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered assistance to be given to the relatives of those killed.

“The head of state said that now the main thing is to work with the families and the loved ones of those who had died,” the Kremlin said in a statement on its website.

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning, Christian Lowe, Tim Hepher, Sam Wilkin, Ali Abdelaty, Jason Bush and Gleb Stolyarov; Writing by Lidia Kelly and Noah Browning; Editing by Tom Heneghan and Ros Russell)

Two years after annexation, Putin seeks to bind Crimea by bridge to Russia

Tuzla Island, CRIMEA (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin, marking the anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, on Friday exhorted workers building a bridge between the Black Sea peninsula and Russia to fulfill an “historic mission” first conceived by a Russian tsar.

Russia seized the majority Russian-speaking Crimea from Ukraine on March 16, 2014 after an uprising toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, but the peninsula has since struggled with economic isolation.

The annexation unleashed a wave of patriotic euphoria in Russia and Crimea, but Putin needs to ensure public attitudes do not sour over the economic costs and avoid handing vindication to Western governments, who condemned the move as an illegal land grab.

Russia was hit with international sanctions over the annexation and Crimea remains largely cut off overland from Ukraine, depending on ships to keep it resupplied from Russia.

As cities around Russia prepared to celebrate the second anniversary of what Moscow calls the reunification of Crimea, which was part of Russia until 1954, Putin visited the construction site where the bridge is taking shape.

He said the bridge, which will span 12 miles across the Kerch Strait from Crimea to southern Russia, would integrate the peninsula with Russia and help stimulate the economy.

“Our and your predecessors understood the importance of this bridge,” he told workers at an inspection of the site on an island just off Crimea’s coast, referring to aborted plans dating back to Tsarist Russia.

“Let us hope that we will fulfil this historic mission. Undoubtedly, it will create additional opportunities for economic growth.”

The bridge is being built by a company owned by Arkady Rotenberg, Putin’s judo partner, who was among the first in the president’s entourage to be slapped with Western sanctions after Crimea’s annexation.

PRO-RUSSIAN POPULATION

Russian officials say Crimea’s 2 million people voiced their desire to join Russia in a democratic vote in 2014, so there was no violation of international law. Given Crimea’s history within Russia, many residents feel closer to Moscow than to Kiev.

Crimea once prospered as a Black Sea tourist hub. Now its businesses are starved of tourists and international investment is barred by Western sanctions. A dependence on Ukraine for power supplies has also left them vulnerable to pro-Ukrainian activists who sabotaged electricity cables last year, subjecting the peninsula to weeks of rolling blackouts.

Putin’s approval rating among Russians is at its highest in four years and 95 percent of Russians support Crimea’s annexation, according to state-run pollster VTsIOM.

But these numbers could fall as patriotic fervor in Crimea peters out and Russia’s economic crisis deepens, eating into real wages and eroding living standards.

Building the bridge, at a cost of 212 billion rubles ($3.13 billion), and supporting Crimea will impose additional burdens on Russia’s shrinking state budget, which has been hammered by a collapse in global oil prices – the country’s main export.

Crimea will get 43.5 billion rubles in federal government transfers in 2016 and Moscow will provide an added 148 billion rubles as part of a state development plan for the peninsula, part of which will be used to finance the bridge.

The combined total is only a fraction of the 16 trillion rubles originally earmarked for the 2016 Russian state budget. But the costs of annexation will be much higher as sanctions – which the International Monetary Fund has said could cut Russian GDP by 9 percent – continue to exact their toll.

TSARIST-ERA BEGINNINGS

An idea first hatched under Russian Tsar Nicholas the Second in 1910, the bridge will now consist of two parallel road and rail spans capable of carrying 40,000 vehicles every 24 hours and connected by road to the Crimean capital of Simferopol.

Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said the bridge would be completed in December 2018 as scheduled, but critics have said the plans are too ambitious and will run over budget.

A number of other large-scale infrastructure projects in Russia, such as preparations for the 2018 World Cup and plans to build a new cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, have been plagued by delays and had their funding cut to compensate for dwindling budget revenues.

Anti-corruption campaigners have also criticized the Russian government’s decision to award the construction contract to Rotenberg’s Stroygazmontazh, a company which specializes in gas pipelines and has never built a bridge.

“The annexation of Crimea was an obvious mistake, which the Kremlin and the majority of Russian people will not recognize for a long time. But we continue to pay for it,” Russian business daily Vedomosti wrote in an editorial on Friday.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini reiterated on Friday Crimea’s annexation was illegal and the peninsula should be returned to Ukraine.

($1 = 67.6800 rubles)

(Writing by Jack Stubbs; Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly and Jason Bush; Editing by Christian Lowe and Mark Heinrich)

Russia can make powerful Syria military comeback in hours, Putin says

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia could scale up its military presence in Syria again within hours and would still bomb terrorist groups there despite a partial draw-down of forces ordered after military successes.

Speaking in one of the Kremlin’s grandest halls three days after he ordered Russian forces to partially withdraw from Syria, the Russian leader said the smaller strike force he had left behind was big enough to help forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad keep advancing.

“I’m sure that we will see new and serious successes in the near future,” Putin told an audience of more than 700 members of the military at an awards ceremony. In particular, he said he hoped that the ancient city of Palmyra, which is held by Islamic State, would soon fall to Assad’s forces.

“I hope that this pearl of world civilization, or at least what’s left of it after bandits have held sway there, will be returned to the Syrian people and the entire world,” Putin said, referring to the World Heritage Site.

In his first public remarks since ordering the withdrawal, Putin for the first time put an approximate price tag on the Russian operation, saying that the bulk of the expenses – $481.89 million – had been taken from the defense ministry’s war games budget.

There would be other costs, he said, in order to replace ammunition and weapons as well as to make repairs.

Russian air strikes against Islamic State, Al Nusra and other terrorist groups would press on, he said, as would a wide range of measures to aid Syrian government forces including helping them plan their offensives.

Putin said he did not want to have to escalate Russia’s involvement in the conflict again after the draw-down and was hoping peace talks would be successful. But he made clear Russia could easily scale up its forces again.

“If necessary, literally within a few hours, Russia can build up its contingent in the region to a size proportionate to the situation developing there and use the entire arsenal of capabilities at our disposal,” he said.

“THIS PATHWAY TO PEACE”

In a thinly disguised warning to Turkey and others, he said Russia was leaving behind its most advanced S-400 air defense system and would not hesitate to shoot down “any target” which violated Syrian air space.

Unexpectedly, he also paid tribute to a Russian soldier whose death in the five-month operation had previously been unacknowledged. By doing so, Putin tacitly raised the death toll for Russian servicemen to five and confirmed that special forces had been deployed.

Dampening speculation of a rift between Moscow and Damascus over the draw-down, he said the pullout was agreed with Assad beforehand and that the Syrian leader had backed the decision.

Praising Assad for “his restraint, sincere desire for peace and for his readiness for compromise and dialogue”, Putin said the Russian demarche had sent a positive signal for all sides taking part in peace talks in Geneva.

“You, soldiers of Russia, opened up this pathway to peace,” he told the audience.

Russia took the world by surprise by first launching air strikes on Sept.30 last year. The sudden announcement of a partial withdrawal of forces was also unexpected.

U.S. officials have spoken of Russia having “a few thousand troops” in Syria. A Russian military source has told the Interfax news agency that around 1,000 troops would stay, of whom more than half would be military advisers.

Moscow will finish pulling out most of its strike force “any day now” and no later than by the end of this week, Viktor Bondarev, the head of the Russian air force, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda paper in an interview published on Thursday.

That tallies with an updated Reuters calculation based on state TV and other footage, which shows that as of Thursday 18 or half of Russia’s estimated 36 fixed-wing warplanes had flown out of Syria in the past three days.

Mikhail Barabanov, a senior research fellow at the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said the swift withdrawal was meant to show the world how fleet-footed the Russian air force had become in recent years.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov, Katya Golubkova and Jack Stubbs; Editing by Peter Millership)

U.S. military leaders voice concern about readiness of forces

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. military leaders voiced concern on Wednesday about their ability to fight a war with global powers like Russia, telling a congressional hearing that a lack of resources and training was weighing on America’s combat readiness.

U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley told a House Armed Services Committee hearing that if the Army were to fight a “great power war” with China, Russia, Iran or North Korea, he had “grave concerns” about the readiness of his forces.

“(The Army) is not at the levels that can execute satisfactorily … in terms of time, cost in terms of casualties or cost in terms of military objectives,” Milley said.

Also speaking at the hearing, about the Fiscal 2017 budget request for the military, Air Force Secretary Deborah James said half of her combat forces were not “sufficiently ready” for fighting against a country like Russia.

“Money is helpful for readiness but freeing up the time of our people to go and do this training is equally important,” James said.

Earlier this month Air Force officials said they were facing a shortage of more than 500 fighter pilots, a gap expected to widen to more than 800 by 2022.

U.S. military spending has increased sharply since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the country has by far the largest military budget in the world.

The Army requested $148 billion in the fiscal 2017 budget, a slight increase from the $146.9 billion Army budget for 2016.

However, the 2017 Army budget would continue to shrink the size of the U.S. Army, which will drop to 460,000 active duty soldiers in 2017 from the current 475,000.

Concern over a more assertive Russia was highlighted earlier this month by Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the NATO supreme allied commander and head of U.S. European Command, when he said Russia posed a “long-term existential threat to the United States.”

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Tom Brown)

Russian warplanes leave Syria, raising U.N. hopes for peace talks

MOSCOW/BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Russian warplanes flew home from Syria on Tuesday as Moscow started to withdraw forces that have tipped the war President Bashar al-Assad’s way, and the U.N. envoy said he hoped the move would help peace talks in Geneva.

As the first aircraft touched down in Russia, U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura called President Vladimir Putin’s surprise move a “significant development” toward resolving a conflict which this week passes its fifth anniversary.

Assad’s opponents hope Putin’s announcement on Monday that most Russian forces would be withdrawn signaled a shift in his support. However, its full significance is not yet clear: Russia is keeping an air base and undeclared number of forces in Syria.

Russian jets were in action against Islamic State on Tuesday. Assad also still enjoys military backing from Iran, which has sent forces to Syria along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Russia said last month Assad was out of step with its diplomacy, prompting speculation Putin is pushing him to be more flexible at the Geneva talks, where his government has ruled out discussion of the presidency or a negotiated transfer of power.

Damascus has dismissed any talk of differences with its ally and says the planned withdrawal was coordinated and the result of army gains on the ground.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, whose government supports the opposition, indicated the gaps in Western understanding of Putin, saying he had “no insight at all into Russia’s strategy” after a decision that came out of the blue.

The West had been equally surprised by Putin’s decision to intervene. “Unfortunately none of us knows what the intent of Mr Putin is when he carries out any action, which is why he is a very difficult partner in any situation like this,” Hammond said.

Analysts in Moscow said Putin’s acquisition of a seat at the diplomatic top table may have motivated his move to scale back his costly Syria campaign.

“MOMENT OF TRUTH”

Russia appeared to be following through on its pledge, the U.S. White House said, but spokesman Josh Earnest said it was too early to assess the broader implications, adding Moscow did not give the United States direct notice of its withdrawal plan.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed Putin’s announcement and said he planned to visit Moscow next week for what he called the best opportunity in years to end the war.

The Geneva talks are part of a diplomatic push launched with U.S.-Russian support to end a conflict that has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis, and allowed for the rise of Islamic State. Opening the indirect talks, de Mistura said Syria faced a “moment of truth”.

U.S.-Russian cooperation has already brought about a lull in the war via a “cessation of hostilities agreement”, though many violations have been reported.

Opposition negotiators demanded on Tuesday that the government spell out its thoughts about a political transition in Syria, saying there had been no progress on freeing detainees, who were being executed at a rate of 50 a day.

The opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) used their first meeting in the round of peace talks to give de Mistura a set of general principles to guide the transition.

A peace process for Syria endorsed by the U.N. Security Council in December calls for a Syrian-led process that establishes “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance”, a new constitution, and free, fair elections within 18 months.

The HNC wants Assad out of power by the start of a transition. While some rebels have expressed guarded optimism at Putin’s announcement, others doubt he is about to put serious pressure on Assad.

“We do not trust them,” said Fadi Ahmad of the First Coastal Division, who says his rebel group has been fighting a Russian-backed government offensive near the Turkish border throughout the cessation agreement that came into effect on Feb. 27.

The Syrian government, which had been losing territory to rebels before Russia intervened, had indicated it was in no mood to give ground to the opposition on the eve of the talks that started on Monday, calling the presidency a “red line”.

PILOTS WELCOMED, RUSSIAN JETS STAGE STRIKES

Russian television showed the first group of Su-34 jets landing from Syria at a base in the south of the country.

The pilots were greeted by 200-300 servicemen, journalists, and their wives and daughters, waving Russian flags, balloons in red white and blue, and flowers. They were mobbed and thrown in the air by the crowd. A brass band played Soviet military songs and the national anthem. Two priests paraded a religious icon.

Russia flew more than 9,000 sorties during the Syrian operation, according to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. Military officials say they destroyed arms dumps, weapons and fuel supplies being used by what they called terrorists.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reports on the war using sources on the ground, says Russian air strikes have killed more than 1,700 civilians. Moscow denies that.

Showing Russian warplanes were still active in Syria, heavy air support was reported helping the Syrian army make major gains against Islamic State near the ancient city of Palmyra. IS is not included in the cessation of hostilities.

At least 26 people were killed east of the Islamic State-held city on Tuesday, the British-based Observatory reported.

“MESSAGE TO ASSAD”

Putin said Russia had largely fulfilled its objectives in a campaign which has so far cost Russia $700-$800 million according to a Reuters estimate, an additional financial burden at a time of low oil prices.

Russia, which has haunting memories of the long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, said it would be keeping its most advanced air defense system, the S-400, in Syria.

A Western diplomat said Putin would “now move to focus on the peace talks and this will put pressure on the Syrian government to negotiate”. The diplomat added: “We don’t know if he is giving up on Assad but we know that the Russians are delivering a message to Assad that they are keen on negotiations over transition to proceed.”

Moscow has said it is up to the Syrian people, not outside powers, to decide Assad’s future. Even Assad’s enemies in the West have moved away from demanding he leave power immediately.

In Geneva, U.N. war crimes investigators on Syria said lower-level perpetrators should be prosecuted by foreign authorities until senior military and political figures can be brought before international justice.

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry, which has documented atrocities by all sides, has compiled a confidential list of suspects and maintains a database with 5,000 interviews.

“The adoption of measures that lay the ground for accountability need not and should not wait for a final peace agreement to be reached,” Paulo Pinheiro, chief of the inquiry panel, told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans, Lisa Barrington, Stephanie Nebehay, Suleiman al-Khalidi, Samia Nakhoul, Tom Miles, William James, Jason Bush and Jack Stubbs; Writing by Tom Perry and Philippa Fletcher, editing by Peter Millership and David Stamp)

U.S. vows to push for U.N. action on Iran despite Russian opposition

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States on Monday vowed to continue pushing for United Nations Security Council action on Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests and accused Russia of looking for reasons not to respond to Iranian violations of a U.N. resolution.

“This merits a council response,” U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation Security Council convened at Washington’s request.

“Russia seems to be lawyering its way to look for reasons not to act,” she said. “We’re not going to give up at the Security Council, no matter the quibbling that we heard today about this and that.”

Power was referring to comments from Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who made clear that in the view of veto-wielding Russia, Iran’s ballistic missile tests did not violate council resolution 2231, adopted in July, that endorsed an historic nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers.

“A call is different from a ban so legally you cannot violate a call, you can comply with a call or you can ignore the call, but you cannot violate a call,” Churkin said. “The legal distinction is there.”

Resolution 2231 “calls upon” Iran to refrain from certain ballistic missile activity. Western nations see that as a clear ban, though council diplomats say China and other council members agree with Russia’s and Iran’s view that such work is not banned.

Iran’s U.N. mission issued a statement opposing Monday’s council discussion of its missile tests. It added that statements Iranians made about Israel were merely a response to Israeli threats.

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander was quoted recently as saying that Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles were designed to be able to hit Israel.

The tests last week drew international concern and prompted Monday’s meeting of the 15-nation Security Council. Power called the tests “provocative and destabilizing.”

Speaking to reporters ahead of the closed-door meeting, Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon urged council members to take new “punitive measures” against Tehran over the launches, which he said were a direct threat against Israel.

“We cannot and we will not bury our heads in the sand in the hope that the Ayatollahs act responsibly,” said Danon.

Israel has been a strong critic of the nuclear deal between Iran and major powers last year that relaxed most international sanctions against Tehran in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.

Washington imposed U.S. sanctions on 11 companies and individuals for supplying Iran’s ballistic missile program after a series of tests last year.

Washington has said the tests did not violate the nuclear deal, but a separate part of resolution 2231.

(Editing by David Alexander, Frances Kerry and Alan Crosby)