Move fast for what? They aren’t invading. This is nothing more than a political statement – the same statement the US is making by what analysts describe as “overcrowding” the Gulf with its naval flotilla, which includes aircraft carriers. Interesting that there is so much commentary when Russia does something. I wonder is that because the very article we’re reading is from a Western agency…

I know they are not invading. They are making sure that in the post-Assad Syria, ‘what they have they hold’.

Daithi has made a lot of valid points above, but I think you’re spot on with your analysis Eamonn.

@robin well Robin did you support the murder of Iraqi women , children and men Iraq ? Everyone knows now that it was based on lies and propaganda. They sprayed enough depleted uranium to keep them all lit up for hundreds of years , and these are the same group of war mongers who are now telling us more lies and the same propaganda…..i will ask again do you support the murder of 500,000 Iraqi’s on a pack of lies ?

Presuming destroyers are not capable of carrying helicopters, then I would say no, nowt to do with the shipment of helicopters…

@Johnnathan – thanks for your kind and helpful comments. FYI, I was out on the streets protesting the US + UK invasion of Iraq. I’m very sorry if this doesn’t fit your one-bit worldview.

@Daithi – the Admiral Chabanenko is an Удалой-II class destroyer, capable of carrying at least one helicopter, as anybody who dropped by the Чабаненко on its visit to Dublin Port last year no doubt noticed. The report here notes that there are at least five other military vessels in the flotilla.

Twenty helicopters in total, one helicopter per destroyer. It’s not adding up for me…

Apologies, its actually three helicopters. Hardly worth talking about in the scheme of things. You’d think it was a ballistic missile with the way its reported on.

@robin that is good to hear Robin so why are supporting murderers ? I mean they committed murder and destroyed the country for no reason other than oil and and a base to attack Iran……i applaud you for protesting the Iraq war but why are you supporting the same group of war mongers now ? I just do not get it at all i am sorry.

@Jonathan, you are accusing everyone of supporting the war in Iraq when nobody even mentioned it in the first place, what did you do by the way? Were you defending Fallujah with your camán, or were you just bashing away on a keyboard then as well

@You Reacted Ha Ha!………well i think it is pretty relevant because we were told a bunch of lies about the WMD’S and so forth….but i take it back you are right , i am just a crazed looney tune spouting nonsense about something that actually happened…..sorry for telling the truth !!

The Russians are in talks with the Americans – it won’t happen. As the article rightly states, these are scheduled maneuverers.

Thanks Daithi I would however worry about the chances of an accident. The Middle East is always a battleground for both sides and will remain so as long as there is oil. Its still the old spheres of influence crap from the 50′s. Funny thing is all its produced so far is dictatorships and radical islamicists with moderates squeezed in between. Gunboat diplomacy on both sides still alive and well. By the way maybe the US could dispatch a few boats to the Gulf of Mexico as well given the human rights situation and Mr.Putin could look into the situation at home and in Chechnya too. Let he without sin and all that,…

I’m just surprised that nobody’s tried to make some lame comparison or joke about the article and the Dail/bankers.

Although there’s still time. It’s like the journal’s version of Godwin’s Law.

lol Fair point.

For me The Journal’s version of Godwin’s Law is when there is a post about a tragedy and some people give thumbs down to sympathetic comments. Then someone says “Why are people giving red thumbs?” and they get a shed load of red thumbs. Then someone else tells them not to mention the red thumbs because the red thumbers are looking for a reaction.

Like clockwork!

Ha… You just did it all in one comment!!!

Might as well get it out of the way and get a good run at the day!

If that’s what you wear (and drink) travelling to Iraq, please do not wear my county colours. Good luck to you.

I think thats the point Daithi

It’s just my interpretation, don’t take my word for it.

Not bashing anyone , is it not a fact that the Iraq war was based on a pack of lies ? I mean have you got some mental block or something ? People were murdered in their beds on a pack of lies…what do you not get about this ?

Factual basis or sloganeering?

The US won’t go in for many reasons, but will not remove the possibility of dropping bombs from a high altitude.

The US won’t go in because it would be much more innovative to furnish shady and faceless Islamic extremists with weapons and equipment through their NATO allies.

That fact is, there is more to this conflict than what your typical media outlets would have you believe.

The US won’t go in because it’s an election year.. That’s a fact. Votes win over the innocents in an election year.

Like you and the whole world stood by when hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s were murdered ? Dude are you serious ?

The ironic thing is, America will most likely feel the need to go in the very day it faces up to the fact that it has helped arm, fund and train the next generation of Al Qaeda.

@Daithi. Actually, most arms dealers get their weapons from Russia. It’s arms dealers who then supply these rebels. So, you have Russia supplying both factions, making a mint in the process. We’re not talking about the US here, it’s Russia that has created this problem and is doing absolutely nothing about it.

Actually, no. The FSA and god knows whoever else, are being supplied by Qatar, Turkey, Jordan and others. The FSA admit this, the SNC admit this, sources in aforementioned countries admit this and I would say the world’s intelligence community agree with this. With all of that in mind, I would say that you’re attempting to lay the blame with Russia on a conflict which is weighted heavily against the Syrian state.

I totally agree with you Andrew…the usual band of anti western…anti Israel and pro Hezbollah lefties that would sell their own families to be PC….same usual nonsense about bad USA/western world and the cute cuddly islamofanatics and how badly they’re treated…if you love these looneys so much go live with them

Marc, you should know by now that the rebels in Syria consist of a large amount of the cuddly Islamofacists you refer too. Are you as confused as Netanyahu?

@Marc Anthony come out and simply admit that your a Muslim hating brainwashed Israeli mouth piece.
You drag anti Isreali diatribe into anything you can and then proceed to label people discussing a different matter.
Your obviously back on the pay roll again.

On a visit to Vietnam I saw the evidence. Heart-wrenching stuff.

Well said Johnnathan

Because dictatorships are just fine and dandy

@mattoid keep believing mattoid for sorry for you bro…..

+1 for a balance of power. As far as I know, most of the US carrier fleet is either in the Persian Gulf or on the way. Knuckle dragging foreign policy by the US met with equilibrium.

Main difference being that the Russians are believed to be supplying the Syrian government with the means to murder their own citizens.

A subtle difference, I concede.

Fox News drivel. The American Empire is arming rebels such as these;

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=218_1343091168

And like that video, you’ll hear a lot of Saudi accents and statements from extremist nut jobs being landed into Syria.

It’s not at all surprising that the Syrian government would want to eliminate such people.

Now that there is a little more clarity to this whole situation, it might be time to recognise the very obvious influence and presence of Islamic fundamentalists and to stop generalising – typical American mantra.

Don’t try to make the Russians sound better then NATO and the US. Don’t forget the Russians originally entered Afghanistan and pounded the place and anybody that got in there way there, they did not help rebuild or put in place better roads and new schools like the Americans did. Now I’m not trying to excuse the recent war there but they treated people a hell of a lot better then the russians have ever done .n

Russia invaded Afghanistan? When? Top marks for attempting to rewrite history.

Maybe the Yanks should drop a few thousand tonnes of bombs on Ireland – at least we’d get decent roads built.

Lol…no Dahiti ..please don’t award nethanthu any leeway…after all he’s only tasked with protecting his people a surrounding sea of looneys….I guess it’s the same old same old in the middle east divided up into our islamofacists and their islamofacists ……Proxi nonsense again

Aye, protecting his people by demolishing Palestinian homes.

Top Marks for thinking you know about history. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/russia_invasion_afghanistan.htm

“History Learning Site” – sounds exceptionally resourceful.

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. They invaded under a totally different set of circumstances and a totally different foreign policy and ideology.

To compare it with latter day NATO is just silly.

And the “yeah they bombed it to piece but at least they put new roads in” is plain stupid.

Respect to Daithi and Jonathon! Only 2 guys on this post not falling once again for the brain dead propaganda by the West that I thought people would at this stage be able to see through, but obviously not.

I’m not surprised Declan. We wouldn’t want clarity, would we. God forbid anyone discuss a biased news article in an effort to make discussion and separate rubbish from facts.

Dairhi, yes we would do need clarity but you ain’t giving it. Btw Russia was the soviet union, the soviet union was Russia therefore it invaded Afghanistan in 1980. Stop rewriting history. Were you born when it happened. Ask the east Europeans what they think?

Strange isn’t it that the rebels were getting trashed and now all of a sudden they can destroy tanks.

Ireland is Ireland. Thankfully Gilmore is now keeping his nose out of Syrian affairs and not mixing with those who are arming extremists.

Daithi, do you not think that eamonn gilmore as minister for foreign affairs as a role to play in this? You seem to have given yourself a role to play.

America is allied with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabian Salafists and Al Qaeda hate Iran more than Israel and the US does on sectarian grounds. For America, it is better in the short term to see Islamist fundamentalists in power than the current Syrian government who is allied to Iran.

This will benefit in the short term but when Syria becomes a sandbox for Al Qaeda – then it won’t be so pretty.

The big losers in what effectively is a proxy war is the Israelis and Iranians. Israel will have another hostile frontier and Iran will lose its ally. Syria meanwhile, will be the cease to be one of the sole surviving secular states and replaced probably with a culture shock – shariah or close to it.

I agree with some of what you say Johnathan some in the media are prob feeding us horses**t but saying that have you ever looked at RT Russia Today. It has to be the most pro Putin anti west channel i have ever seen. I used to be glued to it but its just turned into a Russia version of Fox news complete rubbish, My point is that its not just the western media talking pony.

I agree Irish Mule. Reliable sources are not readily available, but for some it is just trendy to regurgitate the CNN mantra.

I had faith in Al Jazeera at one point, but not since the number of resignations because of editorial totalitarianism regarding this conflict.

@Johnnathan
If you had been following this conflict from its very early days (when the west was generally ignoring it) you would have seen some truly horrific videos on youtube showing the way the Syrian regime was treating its own people – beatings, murders etc..
These were not produced by some western propaganda outlet but by ordinary people in the streets filming with mobile phones etc., often from behind blinds or through cracks in doors because they would have been summarily executed themselves if they had been caught filming.
Many of these have now been removed from youtube due to their gruesome nature, but it might be an education to you if you saw them (if you could stomach it that is).

I was in Homs last october.there was a lot of random gunfire and explosions.i saw little carnage or building damage.most of the damage could have been done with rocks.a nice place with friendly people.pity about the fighting

For fu… The West is helping to install an anti-Western regime,” (for the sake of isolating Iran) don’t you get it?

No Russian or Syrian has ever f**ked me or Ireland over. Something i can’t say about the west; past, present or future.

Probably not. Whenever Israel decides presses the red button.

The point is pretty simple really – for all its faults democracy is a much better system than living under a dictatorship, (as Pinochet’s brutal regime demonstrated).

Have you anything constructive to add to the discussion, Declan?

I’d appreciate if you could contribute to the debate instead of floundering and flailing every time you see a comment from me. It’s utterly childish.

The UN is trying its best. Unfortunately America keep changing the goal posts and instead of aiming for an equal, diplomatic ceasefire, they aim for regime change which they know they won’t get. The result – Russia and China (who support the UN plan) veto it and understandably so. The result of that, cheerleaders such as yourself come on here giving it loads.

Discussion?! You two want a discussion while a war is going on?

lol You’re outdoing yourself this evening!

Petr, I could never out do myself the way you do.

Fairly unpopular comments there, Declan.

I blame the parents! :)