- Live from Syria our military correspondent Evgeny Poddubny. Evgeny, I'm glad you're alright. The day was horrible. What did you manage to see with your own eyes?
- Greetings, Sergey. The consequences of the American-British-French strike aren't what the Western military wanted them to be and definitely aren't what Washington is trying to make them seem. But first things first. Our crew is currently at the Dumer airfield which was one of the American targets.
Naturally, this airfield has nothing to do with chemical weapons. Twelve cruise missiles should have exploded here, launched from the At-Tanf base — an illegally built American base in Syria. Syrian air defense systems managed to destroy all twelve missiles. The Dumer airfield used the Buk missile defense systems. We interviewed the crew chief of one of the Buk systems. Here's what he told us about destroying the American missiles.
Muhammed Saidi, crew chief: "My crew timely located all the missiles. The farthest missile was 26 km away from the airfield, the closest one was 12 km away. They were moving at a low altitude of less than five km and were creating deception targets so it was hard to locate the real target. But we managed to do that. The first officer of the two-man crew locates the target the second sees the real missile on the screen. As a crew chief, I was waiting for the right moment to open fire. The Buk system does the rest. Russian armaments are powerful and reliable".
It's worth mentioning, that we inspected the whole airfield. The runway remained intact and the aircraft weren't damaged. They weren't even evacuated, they remain in hangars and on open pads. The soldiers continue their service. It's worth mentioning, that 71 of the 103 launched missiles were destroyed — almost a 70% of what the US, Britain, and France had launched at Syria.
The Russian missile defense systems didn't participate in the missile defense because Americans didn't target the places of permanent deployment of the Russian military advisers in the Syrian Arab Republic. America, Britain, and France delivered their strikes when the OPCW experts were present in Damascus. Many experts used to claim that West wouldn’t dare to attack the sovereign state while the OPCW officials were in Damascus. But this case happened to be an exception.
And the last thing that's worth saying: the West mainly targeted airfields but also struck several research laboratories including the ones near Damascus in Barzeh and Jomrayah. But there's a tiny detail they don't tell the American viewers. Those laboratories had been suffering from frequent attacks of the Israeli Air Force. Several years ago, the staff and equipment were evacuated. The missiles hit empty buildings where nothing was being developed including the weapons of mass destruction.
To make everything crystal-clear: Today, at the Dumer airfield, we saw the Syrian soldiers stationed there peacefully play football next to the hangars. It doesn't mean they've let their guard down though. Crew chiefs of the Buk systems claim that they are expecting a new strike any minute and are ready to repel it. I'd like to stress the fact, that their weapons are considered to be outdated. The Syrian military uses the S-125 and S-200 systems and the Buk missile defense systems, all developed in the USSR. Sergey?
- Thank you, Evgeny Poddubny. And thank you for mentioning Israel. Today's episode is going to have an unexpected twist connected to it.
Evgeny Poddubny, live from Syria.
