The Role of Combat Aircrafts of the Air and Space Force of the Russian Federation During the First Three Weeks of Military Intervention in Syria in 2015

Abstract

The Russian intervention in Syria has been the first act of a considerable scale since 1991 of a direct involvement of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in a military conflict on a territory not included in the former Soviet Union. At the same time, it became the first operation in the history of the Russian Federation (and formerly the USSR) in which a leading role – both in the composition of the military contingent addressed there, as well as in relation to the results of actions – played the air force. This publication focuses on the genesis and the different phases of the engagement of combat aircraft of the mentioned type of armed forces in the initial stage of Russian intervention, as well as an attempt to assess the reasons for the exceptional effectiveness of the operation on the course of the entire war.