| Oh wow. The refugee crisis unfolded years before Russia even entered the conflict. Accusing them of creating it now is silly. Nor did Russia have a large air base in Syria until last year. Nor did the Russians supply or use chemical weapons. In fact, they earnestly tried to do the opposite - take Assad's chem weapons away (though they obviously failed). The thing about Russia targeting civilians is curious to me. Is Russia killing civilians in Syria? Sure. Are Russians doing it on purpose, as part of their strategy? That I am not so sure about. I suspect it has more to do with urban nature of the conflict, low-precision bombs, bad intel, and yes - I have to admit - the traditionally lower value Russians place on human life (including their own). But as a part of some grand genocidal strategy that Western press attributes to the Russians? Probably not. Case in point, when US aviators were bombing Mosul, they were also killing hundreds of civilians in the process (see links below). Despite the fact, no one has accused the US of specifically targeting civilians. All civilian deaths were chalked up to mistakes, rather than evil intent. But in Russia's case, it's a strategy. Beats me why. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-syr... [2] https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-13/were-high-civilian-ca... |
Correct, I misspoke earlier - the Russians did not create the refugee situation - but they have certainly inflamed and weaponised it. In addition to targeting civilian population centers with indiscriminate munitions, they have also shut down legal asylum from Syria into Russia, claiming that Syria is safe for its residents. Again, it does this so the refugees are forced to flow eastward into turkey then Greece, despite Syria being a proxy state and Russia owing some form of assistance. They've compounded these issues by spreading disinformation in Europe, planting stories of fake rapes and murders by Syrian refugees in European media, again to sow distrust and create political instability. And I'm thoroughly unconvinced about the efforts of Russians to find and confiscate chemical weapons - they only agreed to the deal in the first place to mitigate the chance of Americans opening direct military operations after the red line violation, and as you've alluded to, there have been plenty of chemical weapon attacks since then.
And to fend of further misrepresentations of my words, I never said Russia's goal is to kill civilians - again their goal is to destroy their homes and communities, so that they are forced to become refugees. By closing its own borders it's making sure other countries have to bare the burden of its operations - this is what the NATO commander meant when he said Putin is trying to use Syrian refugees to break NATO.