bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37000570
Russia doesn’t have great aerial close ground support, not the kind like a A-10 that can rip a location apart from nowhere… I’m not really scared of the big bombs… seen people survive them, but the A-10 scares the shit out of me. You simply put don’t get used to it. Russia helicopters are easy targets if in range to be useful… So unless your gonna fly up really high and drop drifting barrel bombs or chemical weapons, which the Russians most definitely don’t want to be videotaped doing, they are deeply dependent on forward observers talking to them on the ground, going off a map grid for when a bomber is supposed to strike.
This worked really, really well in clearing a path from Assad’s Southwest Stronghold into Aleppo, as the armored army force coordinated the strikes with aerial surveillance and protected radio contact from high levels the whole time… Very efficient. Shit went to hell when it stopped being a linear convoy and turned room to room over a large city, with shifting fronts and confusion about who has priority against what.
I think the Russians and Syrians will close this front… Somewhat for a while, but can’t hold Aleppo beyond a few strong points, like before… even with Russia.
They simply lack the manpower.
Most they can hope for is enough rebels will be drawn out of Aleppo for the eventual Raqqa offensive. Much depends on the willingness of Iraqi and Jordanian special forces to respect the border post Mosul. 50-50 chance Iraq will stop at the border. I’m guessing a lot of covert ops will secretly occur west of Raqqa, less to occupy and more to push ISIS farther from the Iraqi border.