Russia’s Travails in Syria and Other Russian Military News

Russia: Need A win, Not Spin

Russia is hustling to carry out some damage control in Syria after two embarrassing defeats. First there was the loss of several hundred Russian military contractors during a failed February attack on American and Kurdish forces in eastern Syria. In April there was the U.S., British and French attack on Assad chemical weapons facilities with 105 smart bombs and missiles. The Syrian air defense system, using recently updated equipment, failed to stop any of the incoming missiles, all of which apparently hit their targets and did so nearly simultaneously. Russia later admitted it did not use its S-400 air defense system in Syria because the incoming missiles, as per previous agreements, avoided all Russian facilities. Russia still insists that the Syrian air defense system shot down a lot of the incoming missiles but has not provided any proof. Such proof would be easy to locate and display if it existed, but it doesn’t and Russia is left insisting that its S-400 system, which it recently sold to Turkey, could have shot down the incoming missiles. Meanwhile Russia says it is sending some S-300 batteries to Syria to upgrade the Syrian air defenses and that these would also knock down incoming missiles. It is uncertain when the S-300 systems will arrive in Syria, or whether they will be sent at all.

The fact remains that Russia had a chance to demonstrate the effectiveness of the S-400 and refused to engage. Finally there was the event that triggered the American led missile attack and that was the frequent recent use of nerve gas by the Assad government. Russia denies this is happening but the UN investigators are convinced and this puts a bad light on the Russian effort in 2013 to avoid Western air attacks on Assad by guaranteeing that the Assads would dismantle their chemical weapons facilities and account for all their chemical weapons so they could destroyed. The continued use of nerve gas and other chemical weapons by the Assads shows the 2013 Russian guarantee to be worthless. Russia says it is all part of a NATO plot to discredit Russia. Despite the confrontational situation leading up to the missile attack and its aftermath (Russia insisting the gas attack was staged by Britain) the Russians and Americans kept their liaison channels open and active. Some with Russia and Israel.

There is a growing list of failures outside of Syria. Russia recently told Angola it would build them to new communications satellite to replace the one lost during a late 2017 effort to get it into orbit. There have been a number of embarrassing failures in their space program and Russia admits it is losing satellite launch business to China and the United States (with their cheaper SpaceX tech). Russia has also been cancelling ICBM programs for lack of cash and qualified technical personnel. Same thing with their warship construction efforts. Aircraft development is doing no better. India recently withdrew from the joint development agreement for the Su-57 stealth fighters. This project is way behind schedule while the Chinese already have one stealth fighter in service and others about to be. The American F-35 is getting good reviews and Russia is getting a close up view because Israel recently put its first F-35s into service. Meanwhile the Russian GDP ($1.3 trillion) is stagnant and the population continues to shrink because more people are leaving and not enough children are being born. Few want to move to Russia, at least not for economic opportunities. Russia projects a more powerful image than it can sustain. Russia needs a win but so far can only manage some feeble spin.

Russia is trying to dissuade Israel and its Western allies from attacking more Syrian targets, especially those that harm the many Iranians and Iranian mercenaries supporting the Syrian forces. Russia also does not want to put its high tech weapons to the test because so far these electronic and anti-aircraft systems have proved ineffective against Israeli attacks and probably won’t do much better against the Americans. This is bad for business, as Russia has been touting the combat experience in Syria to get more sales for their new stuff. It would also be disastrous for Russian diplomacy which has presented Russia as a powerful and technically advanced ally for Syria, Iran and Turkey. Although Russia talks tough against Israel and the Americans it does not want to take this any further, nor does it want to appear like Russia is backing off. Russia is in an embarrassing situation and not getting much sympathy from anyone, not even Russians.

The Invisible War

In March 2018 a cell phone photo of a Russian Mi-8 helicopter equipped with the new Rychag-AV appeared on the Internet. This Mi-8 was operating in northwestern Syria, where it would be used to jam enemy aircraft and missiles that depend on wireless communications. Russia first announced the Rychag-AV jammer in 2015 and in 2016 Russia announced that a custom version of the M-8 transport helicopter (Mi-8MTPR-1) equipped with Rychag-AV was delivered to army units operating near Ukraine. In 2017 Mi-8MTPR-1 was seen operating over Crimea and local Ukrainian hackers, using custom hardware and software they had built, reported details of Rychag-AV in operation over Crimea. Russia claims Rychag-AV can automatically detect and jam enemy radar and other electronic signals up to 400 kilometers away.

Rychag-AV is designed to be operated from aircraft, trucks and ships but it can detect more signals and farther away if airborne or having its sensors and jammers mounted on a high portion of a ship (where radars have long been mounted). In addition to the Ukrainian hackers, NATO has had EW (Electronic Warfare) personnel in Ukraine for several years to monitor local Russian EW efforts. Not many details of what these monitors detected is made public since EW works best if its capabilities are a surprise. It is unknown if Russia has actually used Rychag-AV in Syria or Ukraine. Or if they did use it was it on a sustained basis (required to disrupt a large scale air operation, like the April 13 attack on Syrian chemical warfare facilities) or for short periods, just to test the equipment.

Because EW is largely invisible it doesn’t get much media attention. Yet the most active form of combat the Russians engage is EW and it is an area where they feel they are competitive. Problem is, the more you use it the more you erode your opportunities to surprise your opponent. The opportunity to test new EW gear and tactics was too great to pass up and, as the Russians have discovered, it may be the only military edge they have in Syria (and the world). Moreover Syria is the only place where Russia can confront their two most powerful potential EW opponents (the United States and Israel). Syria is second to Donbas as an area where Russia is honing its new EW hardware and how best to use it. Russia could still turn an EW edge into a more visible victory but at the moment EW is the only edge they have and these invisible battles continue.

Iraq The New Customer

Iraq ordered 73 Russian T-90 tanks in mid-2017 and 36 arrived in February. The rest were to arrive by the end of April. The T-90 is one of many upgraded T-72s available on the market. Until 2003 the Iraqi Army operated hundreds of older T-72s, which proved no competition for the American M-1. The T-90 has been produced in large quantities since the 1990s but not for Russia. It is mostly an export item. The T-90 was a late 1980s project that was to incorporate T-80 features into many upgrades of the T-72. Originally it was designated the T-72BU but when Russia finally began production in 1993 it was renamed the T-90. That succeeded in in making the tank an export success with most (84 percent) of those produced going to export customers. In fact India and Algeria each have more T-90s in service than Russia. Worse Russia has quietly put over a third of its 550 newly built T-90s into reserve. While the T-90 were loudly proclaimed to be the next big thing the Russian army preferred the refurbished T-72s in the form of the T-72B3. These proved to be cheaper and more reliable than T-90s, something that got little publicity. While all the upgrades (new engine, gun, fire control and protection) made it nearly as expensive as the T-90 it was preferred by the troops and the older officers quietly agreed that it was a better tank than the new T-90/T-72BUs.

This apparently has something to do with the design of the T-72BU (trying to merge T-80 elements into the T-72 design) and the decline in manufacturing quality in Russian the defense industry after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Since the T-72B3 was introduced in 2013 it has been produced in far greater numbers than any other tank and that continues. Especially telling was how T-90s began to be taken out of service (and put in reserve) as soon as enough T-72B3s became available. At the same time the most popular Russian tank for export customers is the T-72B (a B3 with fewer of the upgrades) and these cost nearly two million each, but can be delivered in a few months after the contract is signed. The T-72B3 has been so popular with Russian troops that the government is giving it more publicity in the state-controlled mass media.

India The Former Customer

India has in turn bought less from Russia, long the main supplier, and depended more on Western nations (mainly the U.S. and Israel). China has become a major threat to customers Russia long believed they had a lock on. China can offer a wider range of inexpensive weapons similar to what Russia has long offered but deliver stuff of higher quality, higher quantity and customized to customer requirements. Moreover China turns around these orders more quickly. There are still some Chinese weapons suppliers who have acquired some of the bad Russian habits but these are usually bottom feeders supplying the lowest cost stuff to the most desperate customers. China encourages its arms manufacturers to take the high road, except when it comes to practical measures like paying bribes to get the sale and get it delivered. If India and China did not have some many border disputes India would be buying Chinese weapons in place of the increasingly shoddy ones Russia is offering.

Ukraine

The war in Donbas drags on without much result. The Russians are keeping the conflict going but holding back on any decisive moves because of the more volatile situation in Syria and the fact that the Ukraine related sanctions are a continuing headache that cannot be easily solved. Russia says the government has managed to overcome the ill-effects of the sanctions but the government knows better. Efforts to impose more control over the Internet and electronic communications has had some impact but has largely failed. One benefit of all this is steady intel reports (from the FSB and the censors) about what Russians really think in this neo-Soviet police state. Most Russians are not happy. They know they are suffering from lower living standards because of the sanctions and persistent corruption. Government efforts to mask economic failures with claims of foreign victories are not working. Most Russians are against “foreign military adventures” and the government already acknowledges that by minimizing the number of Russian troops sent to Syria or Donbas and keeping military casualties low. The recent death of over 200 Russian military contractors in Syria did not trigger calls for revenge among Russians. Instead the attitude was that these guys took a chance to make a lot of money and it didn’t w0rk out. There are a lot of dangerous jobs in Russia that pay well to compensate for the risk. Those who do that work are opportunists, not patriots. So the government has to go easy in Ukraine and Syria. Russians can take some comfort that the corruption in Ukraine is worse, even though the country is under attack. The extent of the damage can be seen in the higher rate of population loss in Ukraine than in Russia. Both countries are losing many of the young people, especially those with skills that are needed elsewhere and provide the migrants with jobs, higher living standards and more personal safety than back home. It’s mostly about the corruption, which most former parts of the Soviet Union have been unable to control. There are exceptions. The Baltic States have coped, as have most East European nations. But the Soviet Union collapsed mainly because of uncontrollable corruption. The problem is still with the post-Soviet states.

April 24, 2018: Israeli leaders again publicly warned Russia not use their air defense systems against Israel because if that happened Israel would retaliate (go after those air defense systems). The Israelis have developed SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) techniques for the latest Russian air defense systems (S-400) but would rather not use them because that would reveal surprises that the Russians could develop countermeasures for. That would be a consolation prize because if the Israel SEAD worked it would make the S-400 a difficult export sale. Israel makes these threats to make sure potential export customers are reminded of what is at stake here.

April 23, 2018: There was a massive and unexpected disruption of Google services in Russia. This was related to Russian attempts to shut down the encrypted messaging app “Telegram” in Russia. The company that runs Telegram refused to provide the Russian government with a way to read encrypted Telegram messages. The government ordered hundreds of IP addresses blocked, believing that would block Telegram. It did, but not for everyone. An unexpected side effect of this censorship campaign was to disrupt a lot of vital (for many Russian users) Google services. Telegram was founded by a Russian entrepreneur after he fled Russia in 2014 because of disagreements with the government over censorship and corruption.

April 22, 2018: Using security system video and records of Russians entering and leaving the country British investigators believe they can identify which Russians were involved with the use of nerve gas to try and murder Sergei Skripal on March 4th. Skripal was a former Soviet intelligence officer, who worked for Britain as a double agent. He was found unconscious on March 4th, with his adult daughter, on a park bench near a British pub they had visited. The two were hospitalized and survived what was apparently an assassination attempt using a form of nerve gas developed in Russia and, as far as anyone knows, not possessed by anyone but Russia. Three of the police officers who responded to the call about the unconscious people on the park bench also fell ill, one of them seriously. Everyone recovered and provided information on what happened. Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats suspected of being intelligence agents and Russia responded by expelling 23 British diplomats. More nations said they would expel Russian diplomates. This assassination effort was nothing new for Russia. Skripal was still working for British intelligence when he was arrested in Russia at the end of 2004 and prosecuted for espionage. He was sent to prison in 2006 but got out in 2010 when Russia agreed to use him as one of the three imprisoned spies to get back several Russian illegals who were caught in the United States. Russia was reluctant to part with Skripal, who had apparently done enormous damage to Russian overseas spying efforts. But they wanted their imprisoned agents in the U.S. back. This was not the first time Russia had gone after people like Skripal in Britain. This sort of thing has happened elsewhere in Europe before and after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia insists that it does not do this and have been saying that since the Soviets started hunting down and killing “traitors” overseas back in the 1930s.