The Russian military says it used 152mm Krasnopol laser-guided artillery shells to kill the individuals responsible for mass drone attacks on its Khmeimim air base and Tartus naval base in Syria and to destroy the workshop where militants assembled and stored the unmanned aircraft.
The reports came after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Kremlin knew who the attackers were, but so far the Kremlin has declined to name them or their affiliation.
On Jan. 12, 2018, the Russian Ministry of Defense, by way of state media outlets, announced that special operations forces, working together with military intelligence elements, had established the whereabouts of the militants involved in the mass drone attacks in Syria, which occurred on Jan. 5, 2018. The special operators and Russia’s own drones overhead then monitored the site before calling in the precision artillery strike using 152mm Krasnopol guided artillery shells.
When the terrorists arrived at the facility where they were to board a minibus, the whole subversive group was eliminated by the Krasnopol high-precision munition,” the Ministry’s statement said, according to TASS. Separately, “Russian military reconnaissance” located the assembly and storage facility, which the Kremlin’s forces destroyed with another Krasnopol, the statement continued.
Both targets were in Syria’s Idlib governorate, where forces opposed to the regime of dictator Bashar Al Assad are largely in control. Depending on where the enemy was situated within the province, the Russians could have had to mount more than just a commando reconnaissance mission into the area in order to carry out the strikes.
Source: The Drive