127-528: Khmeimim Air Base ( Russian : Хмеймим ), also Hmeimim Air Base ( Arabic : حميميم ), is a Syrian airbase currently operated by Russia , located south-east of the city of Latakia in Hmeimim , Latakia Governorate , Syria . The airbase shares some airfield facilities with Bassel Al-Assad International Airport . The legal status of the base is regulated by a treaty Russia and Syria signed in August 2015. At
254-674: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
381-519: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
508-420: A " foreign terrorist organization ". In April 2013, Al-Nusra Front was publicly confirmed as the official Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda , after Emir Ayman al-Zawahiri rejected the forced merger attempted by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and ordered the dissolution of newly-formed Islamic State of Iraq and Levant . In March 2015, the militia joined other Syrian Islamist groups to form a joint command center called
635-493: A Su-24M, a S-400 defensive missile system was installed, allowing Russia to defend the air space from Southern Turkey to Northern Israel. At the end of January 2016, Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets started to be deployed. In February 2016, one Tupolev Tu-214R was reported to have been deployed. At the end of February 2016 and in response to developments at the Geneva peace talks , a truce coordination center had been established at
762-492: A Syrian observer considered such a split unlikely, and in March 2015, al-Nusra's leadership denied a break-up or that talks with Qatar had occurred. Other Syrian observers considered such a split conceivable or imminent. With members of al-Qaeda still enmeshed throughout the group's leadership, it can be considered that al-Qaeda was not "external" to the group. After the announcement, numerous senior al-Qaeda members still within
889-760: A call for a four-day ceasefire in Syria during Eid al-Adha feast. In November 2012, they were considered by The Huffington Post to be the best trained and most experienced fighters among the Syrian rebels. According to spokesmen of a moderate wing of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Nusra had in November 2012 between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters, accounting for 7–9% of the FSA's total fighters. Commentator David Ignatius for The Washington Post described Nusra then as
1016-564: A firm shield and a striking hand to repel the attacks of this criminal Al Assad army with all the might we can muster. We promise to protect the lives of civilians and their possessions from security and the Shabiha [pro-government] militia. We are a people who will either gain victory or die." The March 2012 Damascus bombings were claimed by Nusra. The 10 May 2012 Damascus bombings were allegedly claimed by al-Nusra Front in an Internet video; however, on 15 May 2012, someone claiming to be
1143-461: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Al-Nusra Non-state allies Non-state opponents Syrian-affiliated groups Syrian Democratic Forces Shi'ite groups Islamic State and Islamic State affiliates Al-Nusra Front , also known as Front for the Conquest of
1270-432: A greater long-term advantage. In early 2015, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri instructed al-Nusra Front leader Julani to pursue the following five goals: Both al-Qaeda and al-Nusra tried to take advantage of ISIL's rise by presenting themselves as "moderate" in comparison. While they had the same aim of establishing sharia and a caliphate, they intended to implement it in a more gradual manner. Al-Nusra criticized
1397-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
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#17327805371901524-484: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
1651-508: A large-scale renovation at the airport. This included the construction of a second landing strip, hangars to shelter planes from drone attacks and the sun, and a centralized fuel system to speed up refueling. With the demise of opposing forces, Russian pilots were said to perform mainly training sessions having at hand 30 aircraft consisting of Su-35S, Su-34 and Su-24 planes and Mi-35 and Mi-8AMTSh helicopters. In 2021, both Tu-22M3 Backfire long-range bombers and Su-35 fighters operating from
1778-588: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
1905-526: A low altitude and “created a dangerous situation for other aircraft and vessels in the region.” “The Israeli pilots used the Russian plane as cover and set it up to be targeted by the Syrian air defense forces. As a consequence, the Il-20, which has radar cross-section much larger than the F-16, was shot down by an S-200 system missile,” the statement said, adding that 15 Russian military service members have died as
2032-622: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
2159-679: A new Sunni Islamist militant group. Tahrir al-Sham denies any links to the al-Qaeda network and said in a statement that the group is "an independent entity and not an extension of previous organizations or factions". Mutual hostilities eventually deteriorated into one of violent confrontations, with Al-Nusra commander Sami al-Oraydi accusing HTS of adopting nationalist doctrines. Sami al-Oraydi, alongside other Al-Qaeda loyalists like Abu Humam al-Shami , Abu Julaybib and others, mobilised Al-Qaeda personnel in northwestern Syria to establish an anti-HTS front in north-western Syria, eventually forming Hurras al-Din on 27 February 2018. From 2012 to 2013,
2286-526: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
2413-536: A result. On 3 October 2024 it was claimed that the Israel Defense Forces had targeted a weapons dump in or near Khmeimim. On 6 January 2018, Russian forces thwarted a drone (UAV) swarm attack on the base, the first of this kind in the history of warfare. Statements from Russia's MoD on 8 and 10 January confirmed earlier reports about the incident, saying that the attempted attack that involved 13 armed, fixed-wing drones which were used to attack both
2540-443: A special operation. Furthermore, a terrorist drone assembly and storage depot was destroyed as well in the Syrian province of Idlib. A Krasnopol precision projectile were used in both the strikes. On 6 March 2018, a Russian Antonov An-26 transport plane crash during an attempted landing at the airbase killed all 39 military personnel on board. The Russian MoD said that the plane was not fired upon and preliminary data suggested that
2667-455: A spokesman for the group denied that the organisation was responsible for the attack, saying that it would only release information through jihadist forums. On 29 May 2012, a mass execution was discovered near the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor . The unidentified corpses of 13 men had been discovered shot to death execution-style. On 5 June 2012, al-Nusra Front claimed responsibility for the killings, stating that they had captured and interrogated
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#17327805371902794-519: A strict interpretation of Shari'a and imposed punishments amounting to torture or other ill-treatment for perceived infractions." Members of the group were accused of attacking the religious beliefs of non-Sunnis in Syria, such as the Alawites . The New York Times journalist C. J. Chivers cites "some analysts and diplomats" as noting that al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and
2921-498: A technical malfunction had caused the crash. On September 19, 2018, a Russian Ilyushin Il-20 plane that was coming in to land was hit by Syrian air defense in a friendly fire incident. The Syrians were trying to target Israeli aircraft . The Russian Defense Ministry said that four Israeli F-16 fighter jets had attacked targets in Syria's Latakia after approaching from the Mediterranean. The Israeli warplanes had approached at
3048-414: A ten-day religious training course, followed by a 15–20-day military training program. Al-Nusra contained a hierarchy of religious bodies, with a small Majlis-ash-Shura (Consultative Council) at the top, making national decisions on behalf of the group. Religious personnel also played an important role in the regional JN leadership, with each region having a commander and a sheikh. The sheikh supervised
3175-539: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
3302-481: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
3429-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
3556-610: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
3683-673: Is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and
3810-488: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
3937-624: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
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4064-686: Is from the Golan Heights ( al-Jawlan , in Arabic). Prior to the formation of Jabhat al-Nusra, Abu Mohammad al-Julani was a senior member of Islamic State of Iraq, heading operations in Nineveh Governorate . On 18 December 2013, he gave his first television interview, to Tayseer Allouni , a journalist originally from Syria, for Al Jazeera, and spoke classical Arabic with a Syrian accent. Founder and Emir of al-Nusra Front Deputy leader and senior religious official in al-Nusra Left
4191-452: Is in charge of protecting the base perimeter, while the Russian side is responsible for air defense and internal policing of base personnel. The treaty was amended by signing a protocol to the treaty on 18 January 2017. In late December 2017, Russia announced it had set about "forming a permanent grouping" at Khmeimim as well as at its naval facility in Tartus , after president Putin approved
4318-573: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
4445-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
4572-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
4699-456: Is reported to be capable of handling Antonov An-124 Ruslan and Ilyushin Il-76 M transport aircraft; the deployed aircraft included Sukhoi Su-24 Ms, Sukhoi Su-25s , and Sukhoi Su-34s , reconnaissance aircraft Il-20M as well as T-90 tanks, BTR-82 vehicles, artillery, with Mil Mi-24 , Mi-28 , Ka-52 gunships and Mil Mi-8 support helicopters. After the 24 November 2015 shootdown of
4826-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
4953-585: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
5080-677: Is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and
5207-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
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5334-609: The 2003 American invasion in Iraq ; Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari agreed to that in 2012. The British The Daily Telegraph stated in December 2012 that many foreign al-Nusra fighters were hardened veterans from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the second half of 2012, Jabhat al-Nusra stood out among the array of armed groups emerging in Syria as a disciplined and effective fighting force. Nusra in October 2012 refused
5461-470: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
5588-1000: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
5715-724: The Army of Conquest . In July 2016, al-Nusra formally re-designated itself from Jabhat al-Nusra to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham ("Front for the Conquest of the Levant") and officially announced that it was breaking ties with Al-Qaeda. The announcement caused defections of senior Al-Nusra commanders and criticism from al-Qaeda ranks, provoking a harsh rebuke from Ayman al-Zawahiri , who denounced it as an "act of disobedience". On 28 January 2017, following violent clashes with Ahrar al-Sham and other rebel groups, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS) merged with four other groups to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS),
5842-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
5969-454: The Islamist 'religious prison' Nusra might be wanting to turn Syria into. The 6 January 2012 al-Midan bombing was claimed by al-Nusra, in a video seen by AFP on 29 February 2012. It was allegedly carried out by Abu al-Baraa al-Shami. Footage of the destruction caused by the blast was released on a jihadist forum. An al-Nusra-affiliated group announced the formation of the " Free Ones of
6096-605: The November 2015 Paris attacks , saying that even though they view ISIL as "dogs of hellfire", they applaud when "infidels" get attacked by ISIL. In an Amnesty International report in July 2016, the al-Nusra Front was accused of torture , child abduction , and summary execution . In December 2014, al-Nusra Front fighters shot dead a woman execution-style on accusations of adultery . They have also stoned to death women accused of extramarital relations. Overall, they have "applied
6223-586: The Russian MoD published its statement, no aircraft were destroyed in the attack, but ten were damaged. An article on /Drive said that key questions about the attack were still unanswered despite the Russian MoD's communique. On 12 January 2018, the Russian MoD announced the military had eliminated the group of militants that shelled the Khmeimim airbase, close to the western border of Idlib province in
6350-653: The Syrian Revolution such as the Free Syrian Army were focused on ending the decades-long reign of the Assad family , al-Nusra Front also sought the unification of Islamist forces in a post-Assad Syria, anticipating a new stage of the civil war. It denounced the international assistance in support of the Syrian opposition as " imperialism "; viewing it as a long-term threat to its Islamist goals in Syria. In December 2012, US Department of State designated it as
6477-532: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
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#17327805371906604-721: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
6731-491: The "near enemy" of the Syrian regime rather than on global jihad. Syrian members of the group claimed that they are fighting only the Assad regime and would not attack Western states; while the official policy of the group was to regard the United States and Israel as enemies of Islam, and to warn against Western intervention in Syria, al-Nusra Front leader Julani stated that "We are only here to accomplish one mission, to fight
6858-519: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
6985-603: The 6 January swarm attack on 25 October, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin stated that "Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," according to the TASS article which provided details on the operation and how
7112-585: The American ambassador to Syria, R. Ford, had said: "Extremist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra are a problem, an obstacle to finding the political solution that Syria's going to need". In August 2012, there were signs of Nusra co-operating with other rebels. The group took part in military operations with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Abu Haidar, a Syrian FSA co-ordinator in Aleppo 's Saif al-Dawla district said that al-Nusra Front "have experienced fighters who are like
7239-471: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
7366-672: The Druze to renounce their religion, destroyed their shrines and now considers them Sunni. Emile Hokayem, senior fellow at the IISS , asserted that the Al-Jazeera news network was actively involved in the "mainstreaming" of the Al-Nusra Front in Syria. The leader of al-Nusra, a self-proclaimed emir , goes by the name of Abu Mohammad al-Julani ( also transliterated as Mohammed and al-Jawlani , or al-Golani), which implies that he
7493-532: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
7620-464: The Hmeimim base and the Tartus naval facility on 5—6 January was repulsed by the Russian forces' radio-electronic warfare technologies; it also refuted earlier reports that a greater number of UAVs were involved in the attack and alleged that the drones could have been obtained only from a country that possessed "high-tech capabilities for providing satellite navigation and remote control." Referring to
7747-590: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
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#17327805371907874-410: The Levant "can appear less focused on toppling" the Assad government than on "establishing a zone of influence spanning Iraq's Anbar Province and the desert eastern areas of Syria, and eventually establishing an Islamic territory under their administration". On 10 June 2015, al-Nusra fighters shot dead at least 20 Druze civilians in a village after one of them, a supporter of the Assad regime, opposed
8001-439: The Levant , was a Salafi jihadist organization fighting against Syrian government forces in the Syrian Civil War . Its aim was to overthrow president Bashar al-Assad and establish an Islamic state ruled by Sharia law in Syria . Formed in 2012, in November of that year The Washington Post described al-Nusra as "the most aggressive and successful" of the rebel forces. While secular and pro-democratic rebel groups of
8128-440: The Levant Battalions ", in a YouTube video statement that was released on 23 January 2012. In the statement, the group claimed that it attacked the headquarters of security in Idlib province. "To all the free people of Syria, we announce the formation of the Free Ones of the Levant Battalions," the statement said, according to a translation obtained by The Long War Journal. "We promise Allah, and then we promise you, that we will be
8255-411: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
8382-436: The Poseidon managed the attack and the drones were switched from autonomous to manual control. Further analysis was provided by Editor-in-Chief of National Defense journal Igor Korotchenko stating "There were three such goals: uncovering the Russian air defense system in Syria, carrying out radio-electronic reconnaissance and inflicting actual harm to our servicemen in Syria," in a 2nd TASS article providing further information on
8509-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
8636-404: The Russian analysis of the attack and the Russian official belief that it was a Pentagon operation. The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the Deputy Defence Minister's claim. In a statement to Military Times the Pentagon said “Any suggestion that U.S. or coalition forces played a role in an attack on a Russian base is without any basis in fact and is utterly irresponsible,” in an article covering
8763-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
8890-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
9017-819: The Syrian government in the Syrian U.S. proxy war (2011-present). The existence of the Russian strategic base was revealed by the United States in early September and American officials expressed concern over the possibility of escalation of the conflict in Syria. The airbase became operational on 30 September 2015. On 26 August 2015, in Damascus, Russia and Syria signed a treaty, effective forthwith, that stipulates terms and conditions of use by Russia of Syria's Khmeimim Airport, free of charge and with no time limit. The treaty, ratified by Russia's parliament and signed into law by president Vladimir Putin in October 2016, grants Russia's personnel and their family members jurisdictional immunity and other privileges as envisaged by Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations . The Syrian military
9144-467: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
9271-530: The airbase to coordinate activities of warring parties and "render maximum assistance" to all parties participating in recent ceasefire agreements; the center will not support ISIL , Al-Nusra , and terrorist groups so designated by the UN Security Council . The Sixth Directorate of the Russian GRU reportedly operated a signals intelligence station by the airport. In 2018 RT reported on
9398-484: The airbase was targeted by multiple drone attacks, all were repelled. In August 2018, a total of 47 drones had been shot down by Russian air defenses. 50 drones were shot down in September–October 2018. Three more attacks occurred in August 2019. Air defense and electronic warfare systems deployed at Russia's Hmeymim air base in Syria have shot down or disabled over 100 drones during terrorists’ attempted attacks on
9525-738: The al-Nusra Front's full name was the " Victory Front for the People of the Levant by the Mujahideen of the Levant on the Fields of Jihad " ( Arabic : جبهة النصرة لأهل الشام من مجاهدي الشام في ساحات الجهاد , romanized : Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-ahli ash-Shām min Mujahideen ash-Shām fi Sahat al-Jihad ). The al-Nusra Front is estimated to be primarily made up of Syrian jihadists. Its goals were to overthrow Bashar al-Assad 's government in Syria and to create an Islamic emirate under sharia law, with an emphasis from an early stage on focusing on
9652-593: The announcement. Despite the group re-branding and announcing no external affiliations, the United States Central Command continued to consider it to be a branch of al-Qaeda and "an organization to be concerned about". Al-Jazeera journalist Sharif Nashashibi noted that immediately after the rebranding, both the US and Russia called it "cosmetic" and promised that air strikes would continue" against al-Nusra. Journalist Robin Wright described
9779-513: The base were reported engaged in training flights over the eastern Mediterranean. In November 2016, after the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov lost a MiG-29K fighter due to arrestor cable problems, satellite images indicated that at least some of the carrier's air wing of MiG-29K and Sukhoi Su-33 aircraft had been deployed to Khmeimim. On 3 January 2018, the Kommersant reported that rebel shelling on 31 December 2017 caused
9906-736: The border from Iraq into Syria , and reached out to Islamists released from Syria's Sednaya military prison in May–June 2011 who were already active in fighting against Assad's security forces. The six men who founded Nusra alongside Julani were Saleh al-Hamawi (Syrian), Abu Maria Al-Qahtani (Iraqi), Mustafa Abd al-Latif al-Saleh (kunya:Abu Anas al-Sahaba) (Jordanian/Palestinian), Iyad Tubasi (kunya: Abu Julaybib) (Jordanian/Palestinian), Abu Omar al-Filistini (Palestinian) and Anas Hassan Khattab (Syria). A number of meetings were held between October 2011 and January 2012 in Rif Dimashq and Homs , where
10033-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
10160-799: The commander from a religious perspective and is known as dabet al-shar'i (religious commissioner). A number of Americans have attempted to join the fighting in Syria, specifically with al-Nusra. Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen , also known as Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum , was arrested in California on 11 October 2013, on charges of attempting to travel to join al-Qaeda, after reportedly having fought in Syria. As of November 2013, there had also been five additional publicly disclosed cases of Americans fighting in Syria, three of which were linked to al-Nusra. In February 2015, charges of conspiracy to support terrorism were laid against six Bosnian-Americans who were alleged to have financially supported another Bosnian-American,
10287-572: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
10414-408: The deaths of 2 Russian military personnel and the loss of at least seven aircraft stationed on the base; the Russian MoD on 4 January 2018 acknowledged that the attack occurred and confirmed that two servicemen had been killed, but denied that any jets had been disabled. According to Roman Saponkov, a Russian military journalist who posted photographs of the aftermath of the attack on the same day that
10541-589: The end of 2017, Russia said it had decided to turn the Khmeimim base into a component of its permanent military contingent stationed in Syria. The Russian name of the air base " Хмеймим " has been transliterated also in other ways, namely Hemeimeem , Hmeymin , all based on the local Arabic name, — حميميم . Khmeimim air base was built in mid-2015 adjacent to the Bassel Al-Assad International Airport to serve as "the strategic center of Russian military intervention on behalf of
10668-586: The existence of this alleged "Khorasan group" in an interview with Al-Jazeera on 28 May 2015. Upon the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Islamic State of Iraq's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and al-Qaeda's central command authorized the Syrian Abu Mohammad al-Golani to set up a Syrian offshoot of al Qaeda in August 2011, to bring down the Assad government and establish an Islamic state there. Golani and six colleagues crossed
10795-413: The expropriation of his house by a Nusra commander. Al-Nusra's leadership issued an apology and claimed that the killings had been carried out against the group's guidelines. In an official statement issued a few days later, the organization expressed "deep regret" regarding the incident, acknowledging that the killings were carried out by certain members without orders from the leadership and in violation of
10922-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
11049-456: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
11176-416: The focus on fighting the government. The tactics of al-Nusra Front differed markedly from those of rival jihadist group ISIL ; whereas ISIL has alienated local populations by demanding their allegiance and carrying out beheadings, al-Nusra Front cooperated with other militant groups and declined to impose sharia law where there has been opposition. Analysts have noted this could have given the al-Nusra Front
11303-692: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
11430-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
11557-541: The group after the formation of Tahrir al-Sham . Held the position of general religious authority and Emir of the Eastern area until 30 July 2014 The structure of the group varied across Syria. In Damascus , the organisation operated in an underground clandestine cell system , while in Aleppo , the group was organised along semi-conventional military lines, with units divided into brigades , regiments , and platoons . All potential recruits were required to undertake
11684-439: The group were targeted by the US in airstrikes . The group's leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani , in his first recorded video message, stated its new name would be Jabhat Fatah al-Sham ("Front for the Conquest of the Levant"). During the renaming announcement in July 2016, al-Julani thanked al-Qaeda leaders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Khayr al-Masri . Ahmad Salama Mabruk , an associate of al-Zawahiri, sat alongside al-Julani during
11811-490: The late Abdullah Ramo Pazara , who they alleged died fighting with al-Nusra in 2014. In September 2015 Nusra absorbed Katibat Imam al Bukhari , an Uzbek group which is a part of al-Qaeda. Child soldiers were used by Katibat Imam al-Bukhari. al-Fu'ah and Kafriya were attacked by the group in September 2015. They also participated in the 2015 Jisr al-Shughur offensive . It was estimated that al-Nusra's fighting force
11938-433: The likelihood of the Russian claims. On 24 April, the airbase was targeted by another wave of drones in a swarm attack. Russian forces reported they had intercepted and destroyed several "small-size unidentified airborne targets" while they approached the base. On 30 June, Russian air defences repelled another drone attack on the base, shooting down multiple unidentified unmanned aerial vehicles. During July and August 2018,
12065-582: The long term. The main criticism of defectors from ISIL is that the group is killing and fighting other Sunni Muslims, and that they are unhappy that other Sunnis like Jabhat al-Nusra are being attacked by ISIL. A video called The Heirs of Glory was issued by al-Nusra in 2015, which included old audio by Osama bin Laden (such as his 1998 announcement that "So we seek to incite the Islamic Nation so it may rise to liberate its lands and perform Jihad in
12192-512: The military facility over the past two years, Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said on September 27, 2019. On January 19, February 3 and 11, June 22 and July 11, 2020, and also on September 27, 2021 Russian air defense systems repelled drone attacks. At the end of September 2015, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, General Philip Breedlove , said that the kind of military infrastructure that Russia had installed in Syria, which included anti-aircraft defence systems,
12319-488: The most aggressive and successful arm of the FSA. The United States Department of State stated likewise: "From the reports we get from the doctors, most of the injured and dead FSA are Jabhat al-Nusra, due to their courage and [the fact they are] always at the front line". On 10 December 2012, the U.S. designated Nusra a foreign terrorist organization and an alias of Al Qaeda in Iraq . That decision made it illegal for Americans to deal financially with Nusra. Days earlier,
12446-586: The move was effective with many conservative Sunnis in the region, and that hundreds of them joined its ranks since the rebranding, believing the group to be "less extreme" than the rival Islamic State . Khorasan, also known as the Khorasan Group, is an alleged group of senior al-Qaeda members who operate in Syria. The group has been reported to consist of a small number of fighters who are all on terrorist watchlists, and to co-ordinate with al-Nusra Front. Al-Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani denied
12573-524: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
12700-524: The objectives of the group were determined. Golani's group formally announced itself under the name "Jabhat al-Nusra l'Ahl as-Sham" (Support Front for the People of the Sham) on 23 January 2012. Iraq's deputy interior minister said in early February 2012 that weapons and Islamist militants were entering Syria from Iraq. The Quilliam Foundation reported that many of Nusra's members were Syrians who were part of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi 's Islamist network fighting
12827-491: The organization's policies. Al-Nusra Front also sent a delegation to the Druze community in the village and assured that the perpetrators of the massacre would be brought to trial in a Sharia court . Analysts at the American magazine Foreign Affairs asserted that Al-Jazeera was engaged in whitewashing Al-Nusra and that there was absolutely no reference to the Druze in Al-Nusra's "apology", claiming that Al-Nusrah forced
12954-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
13081-461: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
13208-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
13335-542: The path of Allah, and to establish the law of Allah, so the Word of Allah may be supreme"). The video glorified the 11 September attacks and the Islamists Sayyid Qutb and Abdullah Azzam . Its magazine, Al Risalah , was first issued in July 2015. In 2015 Al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri urged ISIL fighters to unite with all other jihadists against their enemies and stop the infighting. The Nusra Front praised
13462-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
13589-459: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
13716-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
13843-479: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
13970-472: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
14097-422: The rebranding as a "jihadi shell game" and "expedient fiction"—a tactic known as "marbling" by jihadi groups—and that as of December 2016 Al-Qaeda had embedded "two dozen senior personnel" in the group. Writing shortly after the rebranding, Nashashibi argued that it might help generate more "regional support", which the group needed in the face of Syrian government and Russian military success. Wright wrote that
14224-457: The regime and its agents on the ground, including Hezbollah and others". In early 2014, Sami al-Oraydi , a top sharia official in the group, acknowledged that it is influenced by the teachings of al-Qaeda member Abu Musab al-Suri . The strategies derived from Abu Musab's guidelines included providing services to people, avoiding being seen as extremists, maintaining strong relationships with local communities and other fighting groups, and putting
14351-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
14478-576: The revolution's elite commando troops." In October–December 2012 Nusra received words of praise and appreciation for their efforts in the "revolution" against Assad from non-specified 'rebels', an FSA spokesman in the Aleppo region, a group of 29 civilian and military groups, and the leader of the Syrian National Coalition . At the same time, two anonymous FSA leaders, and a secular rebel in north Syria, expressed disapproval of
14605-475: The soldiers in Deir ez-Zor and "justly" punished them with death, after they confessed to crimes. On 17 June 2012, Walid Ahmad al-Ayesh, described by Syrian authorities as the "right hand" of al-Nusra Front, was killed when Syrian authorities discovered his hiding place. He was reportedly responsible for the making of car bombs that were used to attack Damascus in the previous months. The Syrian authorities reported
14732-415: The structure and the personnel strength of the Tartus and Hmeymim bases. Within several months in 2015 new infrastructure was built: air-conditioned accommodation for approximately 1,000 people, an air traffic control tower , runway extensions, storage facilities, field kitchens, and refuelling stations. Supplies were flown in from Russia or shipped via Tartus harbour 50 km (31 mi) away. The base
14859-626: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
14986-512: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
15113-786: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
15240-511: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
15367-475: The way ISIL alienated people by precipitously instituting sharia, preferring the more gradual approach favored by al-Qaeda of preparing society through indoctrination and education before implementing the hudud (scripturally-mandated punishment) aspects of sharia. They particularly criticised ISIL's enthusiasm for punishments such as executing gay people, chopping limbs off, and public stoning . However, Al-Qaeda agrees that hudud punishments should be implemented in
15494-697: The world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has
15621-414: Was a de facto no-fly zone: "As we see the very capable air defense [systems] beginning to show up in Syria, we're a little worried about another A2/AD [anti-access/area denial] bubble being created in the eastern Mediterranean." (Russia's third denial zone around Europe) Khmeimim Airbase was the subject of Russian rapper Akim Apachev 's 2021 song "Хмеймим" (Khmeimim). Russian language Russian
15748-521: Was approximately 30% foreign fighters and 70% local Islamists in July 2016. All statements and videos by al-Nusra Front have been released by its media outlet, al-Manarah al-Bayda ( Arabic : المنارة البيضاء ) (The White Minaret), via the leading jihadist webforum Shamoukh al-Islam ( Arabic : شموخ الإسلام ). In early 2015, there were reports that Qatar and other Gulf states were trying to get al-Nusra to split away from al-Qaeda, after which they would support al-Nusra with money. Western observers and
15875-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
16002-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
16129-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
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