Yes, they used Syria for live fire training, and they used it for marketing to demonstrate the effectiveness of their weapons. I’m okay with both because they were mainly using it as an opportunity to kill large numbers of terrorists - inherently evil people who burn Christians in cages, sell Yazidi women as sex slaves, behead many of the children they don’t use to deliver explosives, and send riflemen into Paris concerts and truck drivers into Christmas markets to kill innocents.
Given the scope of evil Assad was facing, a balance of concern between the civilian casualties from their actions and the civilian casualties from not acting was appropriate. I’m not usually a fan of Russia, but I cheer for them when they are right.
See what you did. You provided CONTEXT. Something liberals and this general cannot comprehend.