Roman,

I’m following this war since 11 February 2011, day-by-day — and that with help of a host of sources. Prior to the war, I used to travel a…

Roman,

I’m following this war since 11 February 2011, day-by-day — and that with help of a host of sources. Prior to the war, I used to travel a lot to Syria, and have established a number of good friendships there. A lot of my research there went into such books like (just for example) the Arab MiGs series. Syria (together with a handful of other ‘countries’) is thus kind of my ‘speciality’.

Meanwhile, the social media is widely available (indeed: almost ‘normal life’ is something like ‘unthinkable’ without it), and anybody in a position (i.e. having enough time to do so), can do the same I’m doing: namely, scan an average of 400–700 Twitter and/or FB-posts, e-mails from local sources, and whatever other sort of reports related to aerial activity over Syria that are published _every single day_.

Doing that enables one to collect daily summaries (here you can find just two randomly-selected examples), then weekly summaries, and summaries for longer periods of time (I’ve done a lot of the latter about earlier times; the one covering the period since 25 October is not ready yet, though).

You (and anybody else who prefers to do so) are free to disagree with such methods of work, but, from my point of view: while far from being ‘perfect’, no doubt about this, statistics collected in this fashion is enabling any reasonably intelligent human being to recognize patterns and draw logical conclusions.

You can also disagree with the following conclusion, but fact is that a cross-examination of the data collected in this fashion, with reports about specific objects bombed, is in turn enabling to determine exactly who is bombing what.

That much about my ‘methods’.

Regarding what appears to be your complain about my ‘bias’: once again, I can only ask where am I using such expressions like you say I do; namely ‘dumb’, and ‘inherently evil’ in relations to ‘Russians’?

Please, feel free to cite any such statement of mine — whether published online, or in print (all provided I ever stated anything of that kind).

Regarding ‘inaccurate’ (Russian air strikes): fact is that majority of Russian air strikes that have been geo-located so far are proving these as inaccurate. Here are few of recent examples: you can find many more at Bellingcat. From what I get to hear from few sources I’ve got on the regime’s side in Syria (all information provided on condition of anonymity), I can only add that even they — i.e. ‘Assadists/Loyalists’ (or however you prefer to call them) — are meanwhile often ridiculing what the VKS is targeting (and how much is it missing). Indeed, they are proud their pilots are flying low and scoring far more precisely.

Sorry, but if you want to ‘blame’ me for reporting correspondingly, then you ought to explain precisely why.

Shall I report something else but what my research is showing and sources reporting?

If so: why?

Regarding ‘Ahrar ash-Sham’ and ‘groundkeepers of a rainbow factory’: just like the majority of FSyA groups, so also Ahrar — and all other armed insurgent groups — has reduced its presence within populated areas in Idlib and Western Aleppo. This was done already back in March and April, and made known to Moscow. Indeed, this went as far that eventually even Jund al-Aqsa and Jund al-Kavkaz have vacated their bases like they used to have in Sarqib — before both were destroyed by Ahrar, early this month.

Sorry, it is not my fault if you prefer to ignore this.

Finally, regarding your request for ‘the same unbiased and integrity-laden report on the precision-supreme Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen’: I used to run similar research on aerial activity in this conflict for most of the last year. Some of related findings found their way into works of this kind, and few into the printed media (like magazines Airpower, Combat Aircraft and Modern War), and this well before I started writing for WarIsBoring.com.

Sure, majority was never published — primarily because majority of the Western media was ‘not interested’ (while that elsewhere seems to be largely bought by Saudis in order not to publish anything of that kind), just like most of the Western media is ‘not interested’ about Syria.

WarIsBoring is a honourable exception in this regards: it has not only published a number of features about Yemen by other authors, but also two of mine (here is one example).

Means: be patient, and there is going to a feature about aerial activity in that conflict too.

Finally, regarding ‘Mosul’: several authors — including Arnaud Delalande, who has excellent first-hand sources within the Iraqi Air Force - are meanwhile regularly researching and writing for WarIsBoring. There are also such specialized platforms like Musings on Iraq, that are doing the same. They all are far better informed about that conflict that I ever can dream about getting. If nothing else: sorry, but I can’t do everything.

Thus, excuse me if I’m leaving reporting about what is going on in ‘Mosul’ to other people.

Hope, this reply is addressing all of your complaints in satisfactory fashion.