Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced the crushing of armed militants on the banks of the Euphrates River in Syria, and stressed the need to move to organize presidential and parliamentary elections in the country. Putin said in a press statement on Wednesday in the city of Nizhny Novgorod that Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu handed him a report confirming the defeat of “ISIS” in the region. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that his country supported the participation of head of regime Bashar al-Assad in the settlement talks in Syria, as long as he is in power. “We have said to the Russians it is important that the Syrian regime be at the table and be part of these negotiations and part of the discussion,” Tillerson told reporters Wednesday. “Its important that as long as Bashar Assad is still the leader of that regime, that he be directly engaged in these discussions and negotiations,” Tillerson stated from NATO headquarters in Brussels. Russian military sources told the Kommersant newspaper that the Russian military operation in Syria, which was called “Revenge”, has entered its final stage. The sources pointed to attempts by terrorists to mobilize their forces again, asserting that their resistance “is now nothing compared to what it was half a year ago, and especially a year ago.” According to the same sources, the success of military operations in East Euphrates was due to the contacts that the leadership of the Russian forces group had managed to open with the Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces. “Coordination gave us freedom in directing strikes against the fighters,” the sources said. At the political level, despite the Kremlin’s repetitive assurances that the conditions have become more favorable for the resumption of negotiations, Moscow has not issued during the past two days any comment on the position of the delegation of the Syrian regime of the negotiations in Geneva and its late participation in the second part of Geneva 8.