Russia's Foreign Ministry disclosed early Wednesday that Russian military experts are assisting forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in that country's long-running civil war.
The statement by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova to Reutersmarks the first confirmation from Moscow that members of the Russian military are on the ground in Syria after weeks of reports that Russia had stepped up its support for the embattled Assad regime.
Zakharova said the advisers were assisting with Russian arms deliveries to Syrian government forces, which Moscow says are aimed at fighting Islamist militants. The spokeswoman did not give a precise number of Russian military personnel in Syria.
The disclosure comes as U.S. officials have expressed increasing concern about the number of Russian military cargo flights to Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov over the weekend to voice "concerns" about the "imminent" buildup of Russian military forces there.
Multiple U.S. officials who have reviewed the latest intelligence in Syria told Fox News Tuesday that the U.S. military was tracking multiple flights of Russia's largest military cargo plane, the Antonov An-124 Ruslan -- better known by its NATO codename, "Condor."
Notably, the "Condor" made one flight Tuesday morning into Latakia, a Syrian port city along the Mediterranean Sea controlled by the Assad regime and home to Russian military forces.
The flights marked the first time in months the U.S. military had seen flights of the large Russian transport planes, one official said, calling this development "very troubling."
Credit to Fox News
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