Russia says cruise missiles launched from its warships stationed in the Caspian Sea have struck targets of the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Syria.
It marks an escalation of Russian involvement in the conflict as Russia pushes for military communication with Western powers in the battle.
Russian war planes have been providing support to Syrian troops on the ground, most recently in a major new offensive alleged to be taking place in central Syria.
Now, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has announced the introduction of new weaponry.
"Four ships, four missile-carrier ships, have carried out 26 launches of ship-based cruise missiles Calibre at 11 targets. According to the objective control data, all the targets have been destroyed, civilian infrastructure was not harmed. The results of the strikes proved the high efficiency of the missiles."
Russia has released information about the missiles' trajectory, which would have travelled around 1,500 kilometres over Iraq and Iran to strike their targets.
A Moscow-based military analyst, Pavel Felgenhauer, has told Sky News Russia there are multiple advantages to launching the rockets from the landlocked Caspian Sea.
"Shooting from the relative safety of the Caspian Sea means that these launches cannot be monitored by NATO countries, and by the Americans, so easily. And, then again, the Russian flotilla in the Caspian Sea right now has some of the most modern Russian men of war, and they are armed with the new missile system called 'Caliber', and those ships, like the rocket cruiser Moskva, deployed close to Syria, have cruise missiles that are basically designated for ship-to-ship attack, whereas those in the Caspian Sea, obviously, as they just demonstrated, can shoot long-range cruise missiles against land targets."
NATO had asked Russia to stop bombing what it says are Syrian opposition groups and civilians.
It accuses Russia of mainly targeting non-IS positions and using its intervention to help forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad gain ground against armed rebel groups.
Russia consistently denies that, while President Vladimir Putin says it is too early to discuss the result of its campaign.
He has now indicated, though, a willingness to forge closer cooperation with Western powers in the fight against IS.
He says one idea put forward includes the rebel Free Syrian Army, which Russian forces are alleged to have bombed.
"During my latest visit to Paris, the French president, Mr Hollande, voiced an interesting idea, that, in his view, we could possibly try to join forces of the army of the government -- the army of President Assad -- and the so-called Free Syrian Army."
There has been no official response to the statement from Francois Hollande but Defence Minister Shoigu says Russia has summoned foreign military attaches in Moscow to encourage them to supply any intelligence on IS, also known as ISIS, positions.
"We gathered the military attaches and suggested that they, all of our colleagues who are somehow related to this territory, to this work, should give us -- of course, if they have such targets -- give us targets, so that we could effectively, more effectively, attack the units and camps of ISIS. Today, we are waiting for the reply from our colleagues. We hope that they will tell us about the targets that they have."
Sergei Shoigu says Russia would be prepared to agree to a document with the United States to coordinate actions in Syria.
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