MOSCOW (AP) — An airliner with 61 people aboard coming from Dubai crashed early Saturday while landing in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said. All 55 passengers and six crew members had been killed, Igor Oder, head of the emergency ministry's southern regional operations, told Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puckhov in a televised briefing.
The plane was a Boeing 737-800 flying for the budget carrier FlyDubai. "We are aware of an incident involving our flight FZ981 from Dubai to Rostov On Don. We are investigating the details and we will publish an update once more information is available," the Dubai-based carrier said in response to questions from the AP.
State news agency Tass reported that the Investigative Committee, the country's top investigative agency, said preliminary information indicates the plane was landing when it hit the ground and broke into pieces at the airport about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow.
There was no immediate information on the cause, although some news reports suggested weather could have been a factor. Tass said weather data from the area indicated that winds were anywhere from 14 to 22 meters per second (30-50 mph) at the time of the crash and that there was light rain.
Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for the flight-tracking website Flightradar24, told The Associated Press that the plane initially tried to land at Rostov-on-Don then entered a holding pattern and tried to land again before contact was lost. On Oct. 31, a Russian airliner blew up in the air over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 aboard. Investigators determined it was destroyed by a bomb onboard. Russian news reports said most of those aboard were Russian tourists but there were unspecified foreign passengers as well.
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is not an easy politician to read. He is willing to say one thing while his diplomats and military do another – as the long-running conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated. His statements are at the pinnacle of a Russian state propaganda machine shrouding any “truth” in layers of often deceptive assertions.
And, as the announcement on March 14 of a “withdrawal of most of [Russia’s] military group” from Syria demonstrated, he can spring a surprise on both his allies and his foes.
So, does this represent mission accomplished for Putin – as he maintained on Monday (“the tasks … are generally fulfilled”), or is this a sign of Russian weakness, with the costs of military intervention compounded by a shaky economy, the challenge of sanctions on Moscow, and a sharp fall in oil revenues?
Or is Putin just being deceptive, with his air force ready to resume bombing and his advisers ready to support pro-Assad ground offensives – especially if political talks to resolve Syria’s five-year conflict fail in Geneva?
Russia’s short-term goal
The starting point is that Russia’s launch of a massive bombing campaign on September 30 had an immediate objective, rather than a long-term vision. Moscow and Iran, Assad’s other main ally, had agreed in late July that intervention was necessary to prevent the defeat of the regime. They resolved to hold a defence line from the Mediterranean via Syria’s third city Homs to the capital Damascus.
The situation in Syria this month.Spesh531, CC BY
The chief threat to the Syrian military was the rebel blocs which had taken much of the north-west – including Idlib Province – and the south. Those forces were on the verge of advancing on the city of Hama and possibly breaking through in Syria’s largest city Aleppo, divided since 2012.
Russia insisted its objective was to defeat the Islamic State, but meanwhile it devoted more than 80% of its attacks to opposition-held territory. On the ground, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah put in commanders and troops and oversaw Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani militias. Five offensives were launched against rebels and one against the Islamic State.
Five months later, the main objective has been secured. With rebels on the defensive not only against the pro-regime assaults but also Kurdish attacks, the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad does not have to fear the opposition at Damascus’s door for now. However, the gains of rebel and Islamic State territory are still limited.
But no long-term vision?
Analysts have speculated that Putin’s intervention has long-term goals in changing the balance of power in the Middle East. Some have placed it in a global geopolitical struggle, linked to front-line contests such as Ukraine. Others have focused more on specific interests such as Russia’s establishment of an airbase in western Syria to accompany the naval base in Tartous that Moscow developed from the 1970s.
That speculation probably says more about the pondering of analysts, than about Putin’s calculations. Without a stable and supportive regime in Damascus, any long-term Russian military position is tenuous. There is no hope of a badly-damaged Syrian economy offering any trade or investment advantages.
Even the Russian-Iranian alliance is tenuous. While an alliance with Tehran can be a position against other powers in the Middle East, Moscow has to balance this with consideration of how far it can challenge the West. That is why Russia maintained its position within the 5+1 powers pressing the Islamic Republic for a nuclear deal and why it has stalled for years on delivery of advanced military equipment to Tehran.
Russia’s military gamble in September was significant, but it was not strategic. This was a tactical decision to buy time. The same can be said for Russia’s initiative to renew political talks, albeit on its own terms with no commitment to Assad’s removal.
Costs of intervention
Any advantages from military intervention and political success have to be balanced against the expense. The headline cost of Russia’s airstrikes and support operations is estimated at US$720m to US$1.2 billion per month. On its own, that expenditure is currently affordable.
But that cost is not “on its own”. It is in the wider context of economic difficulty. The combination of international sanctions and falling oil prices has cost Russia 1.5% of its GDP according to a former finance minister. Real income is declining for the first time since 2000.
The cost can be borne in the short-term. But Putin is facing a long-term burden, given that the Assad regime and foreign allies are unlikely to vanquish the opposition rebels completely and possibly not even the Islamic State.
Will Moscow dump Assad?
The only way out of Russia’s dilemma is to offer the prospect of a political resolution – but that in turn rests on a commitment for the departure of Assad and his closest advisers. The opposition rebel bloc will not settle for anything less.
Trading again.EPA/Youssef Badawi
Putin recognises this. That is why he timed his announcement for the day that talks reopened in Geneva. That is why he declared: “Efficient work of our military has created conditions for the start of a peace process.”
That is why he made no mention of Assad in his statement on Monday.
The declaration of withdrawal is not a sudden declaration that Assad must go. That would give up some of Russia’s leverage in a political process where it has manoeuvred Washington into a partnership. Instead – as he has done since October over the question of Assad’s future – Putin is buying a bit more time.
There will now be the show of “proximity talks” in Geneva, with UN envoy Staffan de Mistura shuttling between regime and opposition rebel delegations. Moscow can boost its public line of leadership in the fight against the Islamic State with airstrikes on the jihadists. It can be assured that rebels, not wanting to be blamed for any ceasefire violation, will not threaten the regime’s immediate survival.
Tactical victory
Buying time has been Moscow’s approach in Syria since the start of the uprising since 2011. On three occasions, Russia and Iran have saved the Assad regime: in mid-2012, with the Syrian army on the point of collapse; in mid-2013, when Hezbollah intervened to check the rebels on the ground; and in September 2015 when it launched its decisive air campaign.
Putin has also gambled on the spur of important moments. In August 2013, Russia was concerned that the Assad regime’s miscalculation, launching chemical attacks near Damascus that killed more than 1,400 people, would bring decisive Western and Arab military intervention.
So Moscow came up with the idea of an alliance with Washington for Assad to hand over his chemical weapons stocks. That process was a bit of an illusion: the Syrian military has continued to use chemicals such as chlorine in its bombing. However, the tactical pay-off was not illusory – it aligned Russia in a partnership with the US, rather than facing an ultimatum from Washington and its allies.
Two-and-a-half years later, the situation has changed – but the game is the same. Through his diplomatic and military steps, Putin continues to put Washington in a position of reacting to, rather than seizing the initiative.
Now he has done so again. The Russian “withdrawal” will not bring a strategic victory. It probably will not even save Assad. But it allows Moscow the space to consider its next move for a preferred political outcome – or even an acceptable state of tension if that outcome is impossible.
WASHINGTON — For five years, President Obama has steadfastly rejected the argument that the United States could intervene in Syria, alter the equation on the battlefield and avoid being sucked into a quagmire. Now, it appears that President Vladimir V. Putin has done exactly that.
The Russian leader’s announcement on Monday that he would withdraw the bulk of his forces from Syria not only caught the White House by surprise, it seemed to belie Mr. Obama’s regular warnings that Russia would be severely damaged by its military adventurism. And it reinforced the sense that Mr. Putin has managed to maintain the initiative in Syria against an American president who wants to keep the war at arm’s length.
The White House on Tuesday cautiously welcomed Russia’s latest move, even as it continued to criticize its intervention, and administration officials struggled to understand Mr. Putin’s motives for acting now.
“The Russia military intervention propped up Assad and only made it more difficult for that political resolution to be reached,” the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said, referring to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. “If they continue to follow through,” he added, “then that would be a positive outcome.”
Administration officials cautioned that they would need to see further evidence of Russian equipment leaving Syria before they concluded that the withdrawal was genuine. On Tuesday, the Pentagon said the American military had seen fewer than 10 Russian planes depart for Russia and no major troop movements.
Still, American officials said there were reasons to believe that Mr. Putin would follow through. He has tied his credibility to the fragile cease-fire now in place, as well as to the peace talks that resumed this week in Geneva. He is eager to ease tensions with the European Union over a migrant crisis that the Europeans blame partly on him. And he is impatient with Mr. Assad, whose forces have been unable to hold territory in Syria’s west, despite Russian air support.
Mr. Putin, these officials said, had reached a turning point in his campaign, where the costs, domestically and internationally, of staying engaged outweighed the advantages. Moreover, the Russians had largely achieved their primary goal: preserving the Assad administration and giving Moscow a seat at the table for any political settlement.
For Mr. Obama, Russia’s decision is a relief insofar as it eases the pressure on him to increase American support for Syria’s moderate opposition, something he has long resisted. The administration wants Russia to play a role in the political negotiations because it wields influence over Mr. Assad’s government, and analysts predicted the withdrawal would force Mr. Assad to make concessions he was not otherwise willing to make.
But the announcement is a reminder that since September, when Russia thrust itself into the conflict, Mr. Putin has consistently seemed a step ahead of the United States on Syria. His withdrawal could also prolong the American-led campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, because while Moscow trained most of its firepower against anti-government forces, it also struck Islamic State targets.
The Pentagon spokesman, Peter Cook, said on Tuesday that Russian airstrikes had occurred over the last 24 hours, and those airstrikes were carried out against the Islamic State.
“Suddenly, the Russians are no longer as available for the fight against ISIS,” said Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “That would seem to put a longer timetable on this war and a greater burden on the United States and the West.”
Mr. Earnest said the United States had received no “direct advance notice” of the decision from Russia — wording careful enough that it did not dispel questions among analysts about whether Russia had coordinated its announcement with the United States. A senior administration official said that there was no “strategic grand bargain” between the United States and Russia on Syria.
Mr. Putin made the announcement just before he got on the phone with Mr. Obama for a call that had been scheduled at the request of the White House.
Mr. Obama, in an interview last week with The Atlantic magazine, repeated his assertion that Russia’s intervention was a blunder — one that betrayed weakness rather than strength. To argue that Russia was in a stronger position in Syria since it had intervened, he said, was to “fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in foreign affairs or in the world generally.”
“They are overextended. They are bleeding,” Mr. Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. “And their economy has contracted for three years in a row, drastically.”
Experts on Russia, however, said there was little evidence that Mr. Putin was withdrawing because of economic or political pressure. The Russian press has portrayed the operation as a victory — a “mission accomplished” — with relatively few Russian casualties.
“This doesn’t look like a quagmire to me,” said Angela E. Stent, a professor of government and Russia expert at Georgetown University. “If they had been more ambitious in their goals — to destroy the Islamic State or to keep Syria whole — the outcome might be different,” she added.
Those are the goals of the Obama administration, which is why some analysts said it made little sense to compare Russia and the United States. Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of a sovereign government, while the Obama administration’s debate has been over how aggressively to get involved in efforts to uproot that government. And the United States could never have taken part, as Russia did, in a campaign that resulted in the kind of civilian casualties inflicted by the Syrian government’s forces.
“He clearly set out to buy time for Assad, and that worked,” said Derek Chollet, a former State Department and White House official in the Obama administration, referring to Mr. Putin. “But he made the situation in Syria demonstratively worse. When you go in without scruples, it’s fairly easy to succeed.”
The Russians, Mr. Chollet noted, have a long record of surprising the United States with tactical moves, going back to their invasion of Afghanistan. But those moves are not always successful in the long run. Other analysts, however, said that in one respect at least, Russia’s limited operation exposed a fallacy in the president’s argument: that any military involvement in Syria would inevitably lead to deeper engagement.
“Syria doesn’t have to be a slippery slope,” Mr. Tabler said. “Putin actually demonstrated you could intervene, bomb, put troops on the ground and still get out. They effectively changed the situation on the ground, and kept the regime from collapsing.”
The White House said Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin discussed Russia's planned military drawdown in Syria on Monday, hours after a shock announcement that could signal a new phase in the five-year-old conflict.
"They discussed President Putin's announcement today of a partial withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria and next steps required to fully implement the cessation of hostilities," the White House said in a statement.
US officials offered a cautious initial assessment of Putin's decision to withdraw "the main part" of its military contingent from Tuesday.
"At this point, we are going to see how things play out over the next few days," a senior administration official told AFP.
Putin launched air strikes against rebel positions in September followed by a massive troop deployment.
That turned the tide of a long and brutal war in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's favor, rescuing his regime from the brink of collapse.
Putin's announcement appeared timed to coincide with peace talks in Geneva that have been dominated by a disagreement over Assad's fate.
The timing and the suddenness of the announcement will raise questions about whether Russia remains steadfast in its support for Assad.
Moscow has long refused calls from opposition groups, the United States and key European countries for Assad to go as part of a negotiated transition.
"A political transition is required to end the violence in Syria," Obama said.
A recent "cessation of hostilities" has been frequently breached but, Obama said, led to a "much-needed reduction in violence."
The White House sought to turn the screws on Assad, just as his backing from Russia was called into question.
"Continuing offensive actions by Syrian regime forces risk undermining both the Cessation of Hostilities and the UN-led political process," the White House cited Obama as saying.
"The president also noted some progress on humanitarian assistance efforts in Syria, but emphasized the need for regime forces to allow unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance delivery to the agreed-upon locations, notably Daraya."
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the defence ministry to begin the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria on Tuesday.
"The task that was set before our defence ministry and armed forces has as a whole been completed and so I order the defence ministry to from tomorrow start the withdrawal of the main part of our military contingents from the Syrian Arab Republic," Putin told Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in televised comments.
Sharapova, 28, tested positive for meldonium, a substance she has been taking since 2006 for health issues.
The five-time Grand Slam champion is provisionally suspended from 12 March pending further action.
The sportswear company, Nike, announced that it was halting its relationship with the player until the investigation is complete.
"I did fail the test and take full responsibility for it," said Sharapova, who won the Wimbledon title as a 17-year-old in 2004.
"For the past 10 years I have been given a medicine called mildronate by my family doctor and a few days ago after I received a letter from the ITF [International Tennis Federation] I found out it also has another name of meldonium, which I did not know."
Sharapova's lawyer, John Haggerty, told Sports Illustrated he was attempting to speak to the ITF because "we think there is a laundry list of extremely mitigating circumstances that once taken into consideration would result in dramatically reducing any sanction that they might want to impose on Maria".
Test failed on day of Williams defeat
Sharapova, who lives in Florida, provided the anti-doping sample in question on 26 January, the day she lost to Serena Williams in the Australian Open quarter-finals.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) analysed the sample and returned a positive for meldonium, leading to the Russian being charged on 2 March.
"It is very important for you to understand that for 10 years this medicine was not on Wada's banned list and I had been legally taking that medicine for the past 10 years," said Sharapova.
"But on 1 January the rules had changed and meldonium became a prohibited substance, which I had not known."
She added: "I received an email on 22 December from Wada about the changes happening to the banned list and you can see prohibited items - and I didn't click on that link."
'I made a huge mistake'
Sharapova has been the highest-earning female athlete in the world in each of the past 11 years, according to the Forbes list. Her career earnings from tennis alone amount to almost £26m.
She first reached world number one in August 2005 and is currently seventh in the rankings - but she has played just four tournaments since Wimbledon last July as she struggled with an arm injury.
Nike, which has long sponsored her, released a statement early on Tuesday saying: ""We are saddened and surprised by the news about Maria Sharapova.
"We have decided to suspend our relationship with Maria while the investigation continues."
Sharapova, who turns 29 in April, hopes to be able to return to tennis in the future.
"I made a huge mistake," she said. "I have let my fans down, and let the sport down that I have been playing since the age of four that I love so deeply.
"I know that with this I face consequences and I don't want to end my career this way. I really hope to be given another chance to play this game."
What the Sharapova camp is saying
Haggerty said Sharapova started to take meldonium after her doctor did "an extensive battery of tests to determine what medical conditions were causing her to be sick on a frequent basis".
She had "abnormal electrocardiogram readings" and "some diabetes indicators", which prompted the doctor to recommend medication, including meldonium.
He added: "She took it on a regular basis as recommended by her doctor. He told her what to take and when to take it, and then continued to test her and confirm that it was giving her the desired improved medical condition."
Wada placed meldonium on its monitoring programme in 2015 before adding it to the banned list this year "because of evidence of its use by athletes with the intention of enhancing performance".
Haggerty said: "Regrettably, when they added this to the ban list on 1 January of this year, she did not pick that up."
What happens now?
Sharapova could apply for a retroactive therapeutic use exemption (TUE).
A TUE allows a player to use a banned substance, without committing an anti-doping rule violation, if they have a medical condition that requires it.
Sharapova's lawyer Haggerty added that she has waived the testing of a B sample.
How long could she be banned for?
Up to four years, according to Tennis Anti-Doping Programme and Wada guidelines.
But Jeff Tarango, Sharapova's former coach and an ex-Tour professional, said he doubted she would be banned for that long.
"I think it immediately falls under two years but with these circumstances probably one year," the American told BBC Radio 5 live.
"She can apply for a TUE. If it really is something she had to take for her heart and diabetes then it falls under a TUE.
"If it is something where her heart in 120C weather would just give out without taking this then I'd rather she took it."
Has anyone else been suspended for a doping violation?
Several high-profile Tour players have been suspended for anti-doping violations - including Marin Cilic, Viktor Troicki and Barbora Strycova, who all had the length of their bans later reduced.
However, each of these offences were committed under different circumstances to Sharapova's case.
The ban for 2014 US Open champion Cilic, for taking a glucose tablet bought at a pharmacy in France, was reduced from nine to four months in October 2013.
Troicki was suspended for 12 months on appeal after refusing to take a blood test at a tournament in Monte Carlo in 2013, claiming he was feeling unwell and had a phobia of needles.
Also in 2013, Czech player Strycova was given a back-dated six-month ban after saying a banned stimulant entered her system via a weight-loss supplement.
Former Grand Slam winners Martina Hingis and Andre Agassi are among those who have been previously banned for testing positive for recreational drugs.
Was this news a surprise?
Completely. There had been speculation Sharapova was going to announce her retirement at a Los Angeles news conference, which was streamed live online.
"I know many of you thought that I would be retiring today but if I was ever going to announce my retirement it would not be in a downtown Los Angeles hotel with this fairly ugly carpet," she said. What is meldonium?
It is meant for angina patients but athletes like it because it helps their endurance and ability to recover from big efforts.
It is on the banned list now because Wada started seeing it in lots of samples and found it does have performance-enhancing properties. It was then added to Wada's 'watchlist' for over a year. The decision to ban it was communicated last autumn and it was added to the banned list on 1 January.
Made in Latvia, it is widely available - without prescription and at low cost - in many east European countries but it is not licensed in most western countries, including the United States.
It is widely thought that hundreds of athletes have been using it and there are a lot more cases in the pipeline.
'Hammer blow to the sport'
BBC tennis commentator Andrew Castle said: "After the betting revelations, this Sharapova news is a hammer blow to the sport.
"Wada issue their list of banned substances and you don't look? Nor do management?"
Without naming Sharapova, three-time Grand Slam singles champion Jennifer Capriati said she was "extremely angry and disappointed" and "never opted to cheat no matter what".
The American, whose own career was ended by injury, added: "If this medication helped me to come back again would everyone be all right with me taking it?
"In my opinion, if it's all true every title should be stripped. This is other people's lives as well."
Women's Tennis Association (WTA) president Steve Simon said he is "very saddened" at Sharapova's failed test.
"Maria is a leader and I have always known her to be a woman of great integrity," he added.
"As Maria acknowledged, it is every player's responsibility to know what they put in their body and to know if it is permissible.
"This matter is now in the hands of the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme and its standard procedures. The WTA will support the decisions reached through this process."
Eighteen-time Grand Slam singles champion Martina Navratilova
Brad Gilbert coached world number two Andy Murray from July 2006 to November 2007
Former athlete Kelly Sotherton, who won bronze in the heptathlon at the 2004 Olympics, also said it was "refreshing" that Sharapova took full responsibility for the failed test but "can only blame herself".
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he had sealed a pact with the country’s oil majors to freeze production as proposed last month by Moscow and Saudi Arabia to curb slumping prices.
“Yesterday we met with the management of our leading oil firms, and on the whole an agreement has been reached that we will keep the level of oil production in 2016 at January’s level,” Putin was quoted as saying by Interfax. Saudi Arabia and Russia — two of the world’s biggest oil producers — proposed after a February 16 meeting with Qatar and Venezuela that all producer countries freeze their output at January levels to support prices, provided that other major producers followed suit. Putin gave no indication on Wednesday over the details of the agreement and whether Russia would freeze output even if other countries refused.
The news of the February proposal sparked hopes the market would stabilise after sinking to near 13-year lows last week on the stubborn supply glut — but disappointed those looking for an output cut. Despite Iran’s refusal to play ball, oil prices have significantly recovered since, supported by the announcement of a new meeting in mid-March between Russia and OPEC members Qatar, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. The collapse in oil prices has plunged Russia, which is already subject to Western sanctions imposed over the Ukraine conflict, into a recession which is extending into a second year.
