Russia said that its ground forces will join the fight in Syria, in a move that is considered as ratcheting up the confrontation, and NATO warned the Kremlin after at least one Russian warplane trespassed Turkey’s airspace, the Associated Press reported.
The sabre-rattling on both sides reflected a dangerous new big-power entanglement in the war, as longstanding differences between Russia and the United States over al Assad of Syria and his opponents increasingly plays out not only in the halls of the United Nations but on the battlefield in Syria.
News services said late Monday that a second airspace violation might have been committed on Sunday.
The Russian air and ground deployments in Syria challenge the regional policies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, President Barack Obama and NATO.
A Russian ground force could fundamentally alter the conflict, which has left 250,000 people dead and displaced half the country’s population since it started in 2011.
Although President Vladimir Putin of Russia said he would not put troops in Syria, the plan for so-called volunteers was disclosed on Monday by his top military liaison to the Parliament, Adm. Vladimir Komoyedov. It seemed similar to Russia’s stealth tactic in using soldiers to seize Crimea from Ukraine in March of 2014 and to aid pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Moreover, US military officials said they believed more than 600 Russian military personnel were already on the ground in Syria, not counting aircrews, and that tents for nearly 2,000 people had been seen at Russia’s air base near Latakia, in northwest Syria near the Turkish border.
Russia intensified the airstrikes it began in Syria last week. Russian targets remain a matter of deep contention.