Bellingcat: Russia gives misleading information on actual targets in Syria
Bellingcat, a British independent research group, believes that the Russian Ministry of Defense is providing wrong information in their reports on airstrikes in Syria.
The British experts came to the conclusion, after studying the recording of the press briefing of the representative of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Major General Igor Konashenkov.
Bellingcat reports that Russian Aero Space Forces carried out airstrikes not on Islamic States positions, as they said, but on other targets. In particular, the first video of the Russian Ministry of Defence shows the attack on the ISIS warehouse in the Raqquah province. Bellingcat stated that “like in many other cases, Russia gave the wrong description of the place, shown on the video”. Using geolocation Bellingcat experts found that airstrikes were in reality carried out in the province Aleppo, which is 115 kilometres away from the designated point.
Another video, shown y the Russian Defence Agency, presumably shows airstrikes on a fortified stronghold of Islamic State in the province of Aleppo. However using geolocation data, experts found that airstrikes were carried out not far from populated areas in the province of Aleppo, and there are no ISIS positions in that area. Bellingcat believes that the aim of Russian airstrikes was to support Bashar Assad’s Forces, who fight against rebels.