Apparently it’s a Smerch:
http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2526615&postcount=13872

I thought it looked like cluster munitions as the explosions were rather small, scattered and numerous rather than heavy missile strikes which produce a much bigger smoke column.

The Mi-8 shot is interesting. Apparently the missile went straight for the engine. I’d expect the crew have extinguished the fire and switched off the engine because, as tiny as those warheads are, the explosion looked dead on and there was some trailing smoke afterwards (or perhaps it’s the extinguisher vapors?). Lucky crew for sure.

Some newer variants have added armor protection for the engines, but I didn’t see any reports of Syria receiving them. There’s also the possibility that they might have been added recently as a field mod by the Russians given the significant losses to MANPADs?

I actually think it makes the job a lot easier. If you’re working with Salafist groups, then you’re a Salafist, simples, and it’s fairly clear that Assad is the only major non-Salafist/terrorist player in Syria.

While I can understand how this ‘black and white’ simplification of the world certainly makes it easier to comprehend complex situations, I think it’s also very dangerous and easily abused (e.g. the invasion of Iraq).

Which is a correct grouping, since Al Nusra is a terrorist organisation, hence you can’t arm or support them without arming and supporting terrorists. Surely that should be obvious.

The fact remains that the Russians grouped them all together because it suits them to do so. Arguably, some if not most of these groups included share common ideology and similar goals now, but the situation is more complex than that.

So to all intents and purposes it’s really Assad vs ISIS and Al Nusra, since none of the other players are significant enough to warrant consideration. is the bit in the middle of ISIS territory FSA or just a lake? It’s a lake, just looked at a map.

Not exactly, they have seemingly grouped all the Islamic rebel groups (like e.g. Army of Conquest of which Al-Nusra is a part of) under the common moniker of that terrorist group.

Can they just divide the nation into area they hold , its unlikely even if some one comes to power they can unite back the Alwaite , Sunni and Shia and Kurds to stay together. Looks like a far bigger and deeper mess than Libya.

While I can see that as a likely option for Iraq given the current Shia regime stance, I’m not sure Syria can be easily divided because it’s not really clear what would be the dividing parties. The Kurds are clear, but the Assad regime held area contains Sunni population as well. Even in Alavite Latakia, there are supposedly 2 million Sunni refugees. And the regime holds pretty much all the major cities (or at least parts like in Aleppo) except Raqqa under IS control (and thus a significant part of the economy or at least where it used to be). So, it’s quite possible that a significant number of Sunni population might not like to live under Islamist rebels and especially not under IS. And it’s not like you have the situation ripe for some kind of popular vote.

One possible solution would be for the current regime offensive to consolidate the position of the regime in a way that Turkey and Saudi Arabia realize that their proxies won’t be able to win decisively (at least not without them confronting the Russian expeditionary force) and thus advise them to go to the negotiating table. If they could struck some diplomatic deal and then kick the IS out, that would be a start. But, I’m not sure how willing are these Islamist rebels to compromise, especially in the long run, but on the other hand, without external support they might not have a choice. So, the ball is on the Saudi and Turkey side I think (unless the current regime offensive collapses and rebels are somehow able to mount a counterattack despite Russian air support).

It`s available in the Ka-52, which a lot people say its superior to Mi-28

It supposedly is, but they didn’t bring those, did they?

Perhaps their units are not ready yet for operational deployments? If I read correctly, by the time the Ka-52 started arriving to units in 2011, there were already two dozen Mi-28N’s in service. And they keep changing the equipment fit (e.g. there was a new smaller optics turret presented recently).

But who knows what their plans are, they might still bring a few later on to take the opportunity to test them operationally.

Without resorting to idiotic conspiracy theories, why on earth would Ukraine be firing SAMs? The Russians hadn’t given the rebels and aircraft. It was the Ukrainians that were regularly losing aircraft to SAMs.

You’re not suggesting that perhaps pro-Russian rebels (or whoever on their side) downed it thinking it was another Ukrainian An-26/30 recon plane which they shot down a few days before (flying well above the MANPADS limit)? That makes no sense since it’s obvious that it was done by the Ukrainian side who decided to risk all their international support essential in this time of crisis just to implicate the Russians and give them extra bad rep internationally in case the Crimean takeover wasn’t enough for some of those nations.