They’re ‘using the war in Syria to test frightening arsenal’

RUSSIA has used the battleground in Syria to test a ‘frightening’ range of missiles and other deadly weaponry, the head of the Army warned yesterday. General Sir Nick Carter said Vladimir Putin had been able to develop an ‘expeditionary capability’ for his military in the war-torn country.

The fighting in the Middle East has given large numbers of Russian officers ‘highend’ war experience.

The Kremlin’s military has been able to try out more than 150 new weapons – including long-range missiles – and items of equipment in its war against opponents of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, he said.

In October 2015, Russia launched strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria from warships in the Caspian Sea – about 930 miles away.

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said at the time that four warships fired 26 cruise missiles at 11 targets, destroying them and causing no civilian casualties. General Carter yesterday showed a three-minute Russian propaganda video of Moscow’s deadly weaponry detailing what he called ‘eye-watering’ capabilities. The Chief of the General Staff said it was ‘vital’ for Britain to invest in ballistic missile defence, training and getting back to understanding ground-based air defence. At the Royal United Services Institute, he said: ‘[The Russians] have used Syria to develop an expeditionary capability.’

Spelling out specific threats, the Army chief said that Russia was also using large numbers of drones to locate precise targets before firing missiles at them at an extremely rapid rate. The general said that ‘ electronic warfare prompting drone attacks, which then deliver a very frightening array of missiles, is something that is significantly challenging for us’.

In just the past five years the number of Russian air, sea and land-based launchers for longrange missiles has increased by a factor of 12, he said, while Moscow has also boasted of increasing the number of missiles with a range of up to 2,500 miles by a factor of 30.

These advances have given the Russians the capability to create mobile ‘missile domes’, which then enable them to ‘seal airspace over significant distances’, the Army chief warned.

General Carter said that these missile domes acted as a ‘shield in which they can assure their freedom to manoeuvre and deny us the ability to act’.

The Russians are also using electronic warfare ‘at a scale to cue precise targeting by large numbers of drones that enable very accurate and instantaneous fires’.

He said that these included ‘thermobaric warheads’, which are fuelair explosives that can destroy an opponent’s forces.