Russian Defense Ministry

Syrian troops seized a suburb of the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Sept. 17, tightening the noose around Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a Syrian military source said.

The army pushed into the city this month with the help of Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, breaking an ISIL siege of an enclave there that had lasted three years.

Russia has deployed military police to monitor the cease-fire in a safe zone in the eastern suburbs of Syria's Damascus, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Monday, according to ABC News.

The navies of Russia and China will hold a joint exercise in the Baltic Sea. According to Russian expert Vladimir Terekhov, the drills will send a clear political signal to the West.

On July 21-28, the Russian and Chinese navies will hold the first stage of the Joint Sea 2017 exercise in the Baltic Sea.

Iraqi counterterrorism units reported on July 15 that they had detained 20 female Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, including three Turkish citizens, captured in a secret tunnel discovered under the Old City neighborhood of Quleiat in Mosul.

Russia's ever-increasing number of intercepts of foreign reconnaissance planes near its borders indicates NATO's drive to detect weak points in the country's air defense, Russian military expert Boris Rozhin told Sputnik.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said it is "highly likely" that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL), was eliminated in an airstrike carried out by the Russian Air Force in Syria earlier in May.

A Russian fighter jet came within five feet of a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea on Monday, in an encounter the American pilot determined was unsafe.
The incident occurred Monday morning as an RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft flew in international airspace above the Baltic Sea.

The downing of a Syrian Su-22 jet on June 18 by a U.S. F-18 near the Syrian city of Raqqa triggered an unexpected escalation of tension between the U.S. and Russia.

Moscow said on June 16 that its forces may have killed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an air strike near the Syrian city of Raqqa last month.

The Russian Defense Ministry is verifying reports that a Russian Aerospace Forces strike killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

The attack happened south of Raqqa on May 28, Sputnik is reporting.