Russia’s defence minister meets Syria’s Assad for talks | Ukraine-Russia crisis News | Al Jazeera

Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has visited Syria for talks with President Bashar al-Assad and to inspect a Russian airbase in the war-torn country, his ministry said, amid heightened tensions between the West and Moscow over Ukraine.

The trip comes as the Russian military deployed long-range nuclear-capable bombers and fighter jets carrying state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles to its airbase in Syria for massive naval drills in the region.

During a meeting in Damascus on Tuesday, Shoigu “informed the Syrian president about the exercises of the Russian navy in the eastern Mediterranean”, Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement.

The two discussed “military-technical cooperation as part of the joint fight” against international “terrorism” and Russian humanitarian assistance to the people of Syria “suffering from the prohibitive sanctions of the United States and Western countries”.

The statement said Shoigu also inspected Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in western Syria, which has served as Russia’s main outpost in the Middle Eastern country. Moscow has also expanded and modified a naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus, the only such facility that Russia has outside the former Soviet Union.

It wasn’t clear from the statement precisely when the meeting took place.

The Defence Ministry said the exercise in the eastern Mediterranean that involves 15 warships and about 30 aircraft is part of a series of sweeping naval drills that started last month amid the standoff over Ukraine. It said the manoeuvers were intended to train for action to “protect national interests” and “fend off military threats against the Russian Federation”.