Speaking at a government meeting Wednesday, Putin said the only way to fight terrorists there is to act preemptively, Reuters reported.
He said Russia’s military involvement would be temporary, and it is still possible and necessary to “unite international efforts to take on Islamist militants in Syria,” the news agency reported.
Sergey Ivanov, the Kremlin’s chief of staff, told journalists that Putin was granted permission to use armed forces outside the country by the Federation Council — the upper house of the Russian parliament, the TASS news agency reported.
Ivanov said Russia will only use its air force in Syria. Russian presidential aide Vladimir Kozhin later told reporters that Russia will supply “all the necessary armaments” to Syria, TASS reported.
Ivanov said the Federation Council “unanimously supported the president’s request” to use Russian forces in Syria, according to TASS. He added that Assad had asked Russia to provide military assistance. He said that the number of Russians joining the extremist group, also known as ISIL or ISIS, is growing.
“The operation’s military goal is exclusively air support of the Syrian armed forces in their fight against ISIL,” he said, according to TASS.
“We are not pursing any foreign political goals or ambitions, of which we have been regularly accused. The point is just to defend Russia’s national interests.”
On Tuesday, Putin said his country was considering whether to carry out airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria. His remarks came after a meeting with President Obama at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
According to the Russian constitution, Putin has to request parliamentary approval for the use of Russian troops abroad. The last time he did so was before Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014.
Prosecutors in Paris on Wednesday opened a preliminary investigation into allegations of crimes against humanity committed by the Assad regime. The probe focuses on atrocities allegedly committed between 2011 and 2013 and is based on photos of mutilated corpses, the Paris prosecutor’s statement said.
President François Hollande announced Sunday that France launched its first airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Syria, destroying one of the group’s training camps in a bombing raid.
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