MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- Russian forces have entered Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the Daesh caliphate.
Russian troops were shown in footage on the defense ministry’s Zvezda TV channel shaking hands with Syrian children and unloading humanitarian aid bundles with the slogan "Russia is with you” from the back of trucks. Russia is a close battlefield ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, which was invited by the Kurds into territory they controlled after the U.S. pulled his forces out of the way of a Turkish assault against Kurdish-held areas.