Russian Forces in Syria Suffer Heavy Losses in Insurgent Attack on Khmeimim Airbase

Russia has reportedly suffered its greatest loss since the beginning of its military campaign in Syria in September 2015. An attack by highly mobile but yet unnamed insurgent forces managed to reach artillery range of a key Russian Air Force military facility, Khmeimim Airbase, which subsequently suffered a wholly unexpected barrage. According to several reports Sukhoi air superiority and strike fighters and an Antonov An-72 transport were seriously damaged and two Russian servicemen were killed in the attack. This marks by far the most successful attack on Russian forces since the war began, and comes at a time when Russia has already begun to withdraw its military forces from the country following the defeat of the vast majority of insurgent forces. The insurgents are not thought to be members of the Islamic State group, but rather of an Al Qaeda affiliated group. The aircraft damaged collectively cost several tens of millions of dollars, and include some of Russia's most potent aerial warfare platforms.

The attack on Khmeimim Airbase in many ways closely resembles the Taliban's attack on NATO's Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in 2012. Each was carried out by Islamist linked insurgent groups, each on the intervening force's most prominent military facility in the country, and each resulted in heavy losses. In the Bastion raid fifteen Taliban fighters took nineteen casualties and destroyed nine NATO aircraft - making it the by far largest lost of aircraft in the alliance's seventeen year war. Both attacks demonstrate the critical vulnerability of highly costly combat aircraft to attacks on airbases - particularly modern high maintenance platforms which spend the vast majority of the time grounded. A critical lesson from both attacks is the importance of protecting one's aircraft on the ground and the ludicrousness grounded aircraft can present as targets of ground, missile and air attacks. The attack on Khmeimim, much like the retaking of Palmyra by IS in late 2016, demonstrates that Russia cannot afford to underestimate Islamic insurgent forces in Syria even after they suffer numerous defeats - as with a steady supply of manpower, funds and supplies such groups are willing and very often able to compensate for their losses despite heavy casualties.