Russia's wide-reaching anti-terrorist campaign has helped to stabilize the situation on the ground in Syria and has paved the way for a ceasefire and reconciliations. RT has gathered 10 of the most dramatic videos of Russia's strikes over past six months.

Bombs out!

Some of the most jaw-dropping footage since the Russian Air Force carried out its first airstrikes in September was the cockpit view of Russian aircraft taking off from Khmeimim airfield, carrying out sorties and returning to base.


Cutting smuggling...

It was strategically important to cripple terrorists' financial flows by destroying infrastructure such as refineries, as well as tanker vehicles Islamic State used for smuggling oil to Iraq and Turkey.

Russian Aerospace Forces Commander stated that forces from the Syrian Army, the coalition, and the opposition are sufficient in destroying the Daesh terrorist organization.

Forces from the Syrian Army, the coalition, and the opposition are sufficient in destroying the Daesh terrorist organization, which is prohibited in numerous countries including Russia and the United States, as well as other terrorists, Russian Aerospace Forces Commander Col.-Gen. Viktor Bondaryov said Tuesday.

"In order to complete the destruction of terrorist groups, the Syrian Army is sufficient enough, as well as coalition forces and the opposition," Bondaryov said.

As Russia's Vladimir Putin announced the start of the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has reported the anti-terror operation's achievements to the Commander-in-Chief.

"Backed by our aviation, Syrian forces have freed 400 populated areas and over 10,000 square kilometers [3,860 square miles] of territories," Shoigu said during a Kremlin meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

Terrorists have been forced out from Latakia and Aleppo, and Palmyra has been "blocked," the military official reported to Putin, saying that military actions to free the UNESCO heritage site from militants continue. Hama and Homs Provinces in central Syria have been largely mopped up, and Kuweires airbase that had been besieged by terrorists for over three years was retaken.

What is a pro-democracy nonprofit?
Pro-Democracy Nonprofit Is Banned in Russia

A nonprofit group that promotes democracy has become the latest American-linked group to be banned in Russia under restrictions on "undesirable" organizations signed into law by President Vladimir V. Putin in May. The office of Russia's prosecutor general on Thursday outlawed the group, the National Democratic Institute, claiming in a statement that the it posed "a threat to the foundations of Russia's constitutional order and national security." [NYT, Pro-Democracy Nonprofit Is Banned in Russia ]

The above quoted NYT piece studiously avoids to describe what the "pro-democracy nonprofit" really is. There is no mention at all of its sources of money or its relations to non-Russian governments.

The National Democratic Institute, a group promoting democracy and civil society, had operated in Russia directly since the late 1980s, but it decided to close its offices there in 2012, according to its website. It has continued to establish programs in Russia through partner organizations, however. Madeleine K. Albright, an former United States secretary of state, is its chairwoman. [NYT, Pro-Democracy Nonprofit Is Banned in Russia ]

When asked about U.S. sanctions against Iraq, Madeleine Albright once said (vid) that 500,000 killed Iraqi children were "worth it". Any organization led by her must surely be a morally good. But who pays it? And what for?

To know what exactly this "nonprofit" is, is certainly relevant [in order] to understand the Russian position. But the NYT writer hides from the readers the fact that the NDI is a U.S. government financed organization. It is a "nonprofit organization" in the same sense that the U.S. Armed Forces are a "nonprofit organization". The NDI has been involved throughout the years in dozens of right-wing "regime change" coups. Its direct parent organization is the U.S. National Endowment of Democracy:

The private, congressionally funded NED has been a controversial tool in U.S. foreign policy because of its support of efforts to overthrow foreign governments. As the writers Jonah Gindin and Kirsten Weld remarked in the January/February 2007 NACLA Report on the Americas: "Since [1983], the NED and other democracy-promoting governmental and nongovernmental institutions have intervened successfully on behalf of 'democracy'—actually a very particular form of low-intensity democracy chained to pro-market economics—in countries from Nicaragua to the Philippines, Ukraine to Haiti, overturning unfriendly 'authoritarian' governments (many of which the United States had previously supported) and replacing them with handpicked pro-market allies."[2]

NED works principally through four core institutes: the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDIIA or NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), and the Center for International Private Enterprise—representing, respectively, the country's two major political parties, organized labor, and the business community.

When facing the growling, violent bedlam that is Donald Trump's presidential campaign, I am given to contemplate the concept of the Perpetual Motion Machine. According to Wikipedia, "A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work indefinitely without an energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, as it would violate the first or second law of thermodynamics."

"Thus," the explanation continues, "machines which extract energy from finite sources will not operate indefinitely, because they are driven by the energy stored in the source, which will eventually be exhausted. A common example is devices powered by ocean currents, whose energy is ultimately derived from the Sun, which itself will eventually burn out. Machines powered by more obscure sources have been proposed, but are subject to the same inescapable laws, and will eventually wind down."

I'm not so sure about that.

Physics and engineering have been around since long before the Egyptians built the pyramids, but all the rules and logic and constants of those crafts never had to account for a dangerous authoritarian entertainer who tells his supporters to beat people up while on national television and still gets a bump in the polls. Donald Trump is Benito Mussolini with a bad combover. He is the frictionless machine. He may wind up on a gibbet someday, but if he carries the contests on Tuesday, he's going to be the Republican nominee for president.

As things stand today, Iran has no interest in participating in a production freeze agreement led by Russia and Saudi Arabia, Reuters reports. This threatens to delay the meeting of the world's biggest crude producers scheduled for March 20 in Moscow. Last week, Nigeria's Oil Minister Emmanuel Kachikwu said the meeting would take place in the Russian capital. The meeting is seen as a key step to freezing output at January levels, as agreed by the world's two biggest oil producers Russia and Saudi Arabia and later joined by OPEC members Venezuela and Qatar.

Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said the day and place of the meeting are yet to be set, as it could take place on any day from March 20 to April 1 in a Russian city, Doha or Vienna. At present Iran says it doesn't want to be included in the deal, as it wants to return to pre-sanctions crude output levels, according to Reuters sources in OPEC. Kuwait reportedly announced it would join the pact only if every OPEC member, including Iran, is joining.

Anyone who haggled about the price of a carpet in a Turkish bazaar knows these guys are more reptilian than Henry Kissinger. They always get what they want by letting you leave with the impression you got what you want for a price way higher than you were initially inclined to pay.

Cue to a bunch of clueless European tourists haggling about a refugee deal with carpet bazaar ace Ahmet Davutoglu - Turkey's Prime Minister and grand vizier of Sultan Erdogan. Much more than clinching a sleazy deal, the EU may end up selling what's left of its allegedly humanitarian and democratic «principles», a.k.a. soul, to the carpet man. Did neither of these Eurocrats ever read Goethe's Faust?

So let's recap what the EU will get from Ankara's masterful extortion racket. Instead of paying 3 billion euros for the refugee «carpet», it will pay 6.6 billion euros. It will facilitate visa-free travel for what's left of the Schengen space to 75 million Turks. It will accelerate the bureaucratic road map for Turkish pre-accession to the EU. And it will comply with Ankara's demand that for every Syrian re-expelled from Greece back to Turkey - over 2,000 arrive everyday as we speak - one Turk will be allowed to settle in the EU's austerity purgatory.

This is what the Mob usually dubs «an offer you can't refuse».

The Prosecutor General's Office has ruled that the National Democratic Institute, chaired by a former US secretary of state, poses a threat to Russian security and constitutional order. It proposed including the NGO on the list of undesirable organizations.

The proposal to blacklist Madeleine Albright's NDI group has been forwarded to the Justice Ministry, but as everything that is left is pure formalities the ban can be considered as already imposed.

According to NDI's website the group operated in Russia directly since late 1980s. In 2012 it closed its office in the country, but continued to implement its programs through partner organizations.

Russia introduced the Law on Undesirable Foreign Organizations in late May 2015. The act requires the Prosecutor General's Office and the Foreign Ministry to make an official list of undesirable foreign groups and outlaw their activities. Once the group is recognized as undesirable, all its assets in Russia must be frozen, offices closed and distribution of any of its information materials must be banned.

Five years of war, five months of Russian military intervention, and now peace talks are underway. It's as simple as that.

However, rather than acknowledging a successful Russian mission, Western media outlets immediately began speculating that President Putin's surprise announcement to withdraw Russian forces from Syria indicates a "rift" between Moscow and Damascus.

This is just more of the same Western media weapon of mass distraction that has obscured the real nature of the five-year war.

The sovereignty of Syria is the central principle officially underpinning peace talks that resumed in Geneva this week. Without Russia's military intervention, Syria would not have the chance to pursue a political settlement on such solid footing.

By contrast, after nearly two years of US-led military intervention allegedly to "defeat terrorism", the Syrian state was on the brink of collapse from a largely foreign-backed terrorist assault. Until, that is, Russia intervened at the end of September last year.

Israel has seized a large piece of land in the occupied West Bank, a report says, as the regime in Tel Aviv continues to defy international calls to stop its expansionist policy in the Palestinian territories.

Israeli Army Radio said on Tuesday that the confiscated land is about 579 acres (234 hectares) and is located near the Dead Sea and the city of Jericho.

A campaigning group based in the occupied territories said the appropriation is the largest land confiscation in the West Bank in recent years. The Peace Now movement, which opposes Israel's building of settlements, said Tel Aviv plans to expand settlements and build tourism and other commercial facilities in the area.

The Palestinian Authority, which rules the occupied West Bank, issued a statement Tuesday calling on the international community to press Israel to stop land confiscations.