Jonathan Marcus, BBC defense correspondent, says that “Russia’s intervention in Syria has changed the military and diplomatic dynamic in the crisis and left Washington struggling to catch up.”

The United States claimed there was a shift in its campaign in Syria against the Takfiri group, ISIL (so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Levant).

US Defiance Secretary Ashton Carter indicated the shift, including the use of direct ground raids. He also said that there would also be more air strikes against "high-value targets", BBC reported.

The British broadcaster quoted observers as saying that Carter’s comments reflect acknowledgment of the lack of progress in defeating the militant group.

The real shift was made by the Russian campaign, the BBC stated, with Jonathan Marcus, BBC defense correspondent saying that “Russia's intervention in Syria has changed the military and diplomatic dynamic in the crisis and left Washington struggling to catch up.”

“Whatever the inconsistencies in Moscow's own policies, it has highlighted the deficiencies in Washington's approach - not least the collapse of its ailing train-and-equip program for Syria that was largely going nowhere,” the report on BBC said.

“US defense Secretary Ashton Carter wants a more active US strategy, but this inevitably runs counter to the prevailing mood in the White House,” according to BBC.

The report said that the US president Barack Obama has cast, after all, his presidency as one that will withdraw US troops from foreign wars, not engage in new ones. It added that there is talk of deploying a small number of Apache attack helicopters to Iraq.

“That could involve hundreds of extra US personnel. But US success still requires effective local allies on the ground and they are in short supply,” the report noted.

Russia started its own air strikes against ISIL in Syria on September 30 under the request of the Syrian government.