Declaring a victory in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday visited a Russian military air base in the country and announced a partial pullout of Russian forces from the Mideast nation.<\/p>\n
Putin\u2019s visit marks his first trip to Syria, drawing a symbolic line under the campaign that has shored up President Bashar Assad\u2019s government. It is also the first visit by a foreign head of state to war-ravaged Syria since its bloodletting started nearly seven years ago.<\/p>\n
Putin\u2019s brief stop at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria\u2019s coastal province of Latakia while on route to Egypt comes days after the Russian president declared his bid to run for re-election in the March 18 vote, helping encourage the feelings of pride about Russia\u2019s revived global clout and prestige.<\/p>\n
It also follows the Russian announcement last week that the Syrian army under the Russian air cover routed the Islamic State in eastern Syria and fully restored control over the border with Iraq.<\/p>\n
In a televised speech to the Russian troops at the base, the Russian leader hailed their valor.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have shown the best qualities of a Russian soldier,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n
The Hemeimeem base, in the heartland of Assad\u2019s Alawite minority, has served as the main foothold for the Russian military campaign in Syria.<\/p>\n
In a speech to the troops, Putin said that he had ordered the military to withdraw a \u201csignificant part\u201d of the Russian contingent in Syria.<\/p>\n
\u201cFriends, the Motherland is waiting for you,\u201d Putin said. He added that \u201cif the terrorists again raise their heads, we will deal such blows to them they have never seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russian television stations showed Putin walking off the plane, embracing and shaking hands with Assad at the air base.<\/p>\n
Putin said that the Russian military will maintain their presence at the Hemeimeem air base and the naval facility in Tartus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Declaring a victory in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday visited a Russian military air base in the country and announced a partial pullout of Russian forces from the Mideast nation. Putin\u2019s visit marks his first trip to Syria, drawing a symbolic line under the campaign that has shored up President Bashar Assad\u2019s government. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13001,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12999\/revisions\/13001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}