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Russian Media Downplay Impact of U.S.-led Syria Strike

By Fuad Mukhtarli April 19, 2018

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U.S. cruise missile strikes on Syria / Global News

In the wake of the April 14 U.S.-led coalition strike on Syria, the Russian media repeatedly focused on assertions that some 70 percent of the missiles fired at Syrian targets were shot down by the country’s air defense system.

The key line that permeated through Syrian reports on Russian state media was that 71 of 103 cruise missiles fired by the Western coalition were brought down, and the source of the number was the April 14 briefing by the head of the main operational department of the Russian General Staff, Sergei Rudskoy, who said the Syrians had "successfully repelled" the strikes.

"Seventy-one cruise missiles were intercepted. The Syrian air defense system, S-125, S-200, Buk, Kvadrat and Osa were involved in repulsing the missile attacks, which indicate the high efficiency of the complexes in service in Syria and the high training of military personnel trained by our specialists," Gen Sergei Rudskoy said in a briefing.

The Pentagon said three sites were targeted in the attack - the Barzeh research and development center near Damascus and two suspected chemical weapons storage facilities near Him Shinshar. Barzeh was said to have been hit by 76 U.S. cruise missiles, one of the sites at Him Shinshar was hit by 22 U.S., French and British cruise missiles, and the second site at Him Shinshar by seven French missiles.

Of these sites, Rudskoy mentioned "facilities near Barzeh and Jairamani", saying 30 missiles were launched at it, with seven shot down by Syrian air defenses.

The key difference from Western media accounts was that Rudskoy claimed that the allies targeted five other air facilities not mentioned by the Pentagon - Damascus International Airport, the Dumayr airbase, the Marj Ruhayil (Bulay) airbase, the Shairat airbase and the Mezzeh military airport, and Homs airport.

Of 71 missiles fired at these targets, all but eight were shot down, according to Rudskoy. On state Rossiya 1 TV's flagship Sunday night weekly news program, Vesti Nedeli, a video report by war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny showed what he said was footage of Western cruise missiles being intercepted by Syrian anti-air missiles, without mentioning the location.

"The results of the US-British-French missile attack are not what the militaries of Western countries would have liked to have seen," Poddubny said, repeated the line of a total of 71 missiles shot down.

On April 16, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that Syria's air defense forces used 112 surface-to-air missiles (SAM) to repel the US-led missile strike against targets in Syria on April 14.

According to General Konashenkov, the total of 112 included 25 SAMs fired from the Pantsir self-propelled anti-aircraft gun-and-missile system, according to reports by TASS news agency on April 16.

"In the repelling of the strike, a total of 112 anti-aircraft guided missiles were expended," Konashenkov said.

"He specified that 25 missiles were fired from the Pantsir-S1, which hit 23 targets.”