Rossiya-24, a Russian state television station, reports the news and weather like any other TV station. But unlike most other demented news and weather shows, weatherperson Yekaterina Grigorova has added the forecast for bombing conditions over Syria to her weather report. Sunny with a chance of cluster bombs over Aleppo, if you will.
During Grigorova’s forcecast, she discussed the potential atmospheric obstacles to successful air strikes in Syria, following up by saying that “it is a very opportune time to launch an air force operation,” and continued by saying that “October is a good time for flying in Syria.”
When it would have been a bad time to fly in Syria, she didn’t say.
To be fair, during the opening stages of large U.S. military operations, some U.S. television meteorologists will also give the weather report over the country where our forces are engaged. This is especially true when the weather conditions become extreme, curtailing air and even ground operations in some cases.
But those aren’t state broadcasters. And we’re wondering if the new excuse for Russia showing up late to the Syria-and-ISIS maw is really just going to be a spot of nice weather.
Over the last decade this has become less of an issue as U.S. and allied forces have fielded GPS-guided weapons that do not need laser or visual cuing from the drop-aircraft to hit their targets with extreme accuracy.
Still, with Russia’s seemingly endless supply of nationalist vigor, local weather reports with Syrian bombing conditions included are not really a surprise, especially since the potential negative impacts of Russia’s deepening involvement in Syria have not materialized as of yet.
CBS reports that during fighting in eastern Ukraine last January a similar, if not more flagrant war-time weather report was given by Russian news stations. At the conclusion of one of those the anchor said that “it looks like the weather does not side with the Ukrainian army.”
All’s fair in weather and war, I guess?
Contact the author Tyler@Jalopnik.com