UKRAINE WAR: Syria’s barrel bomb experts in Russia to help with potential Ukraine campaign.

Intelligence officers say more than 50 specialists, all with vast experience in making and delivering the crude explosive, have been in Russia for several weeks working alongside officials from Vladimir Putin’s military.

Their arrival is understood to be one factor behind US and European warnings that the Russian military may have been preparing for the use of chemical weapons in the conflict, which has entered its fourth month with little sign of slowing.

Barrel bombs – crude explosives packed in to a drum and dropped from a helicopter – were used to devastating effect throughout the Syrian war.

Under Vlad Putin, Russia is transforming itself from a Third World nation with a First World military to a Third World nation with a Third World military.