Posted on 12/08/2024 6:43:46 AM PST by Timber Rattler
On November 27, a powerful force led by Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched an offensive in northern Syria. Taking advantage of the dysfunctional Assad regime forces – the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) – and Russia’s preoccupation with its grinding war in Ukraine, HTS and its Turkish-supported allies advanced to the south – and swiftly liberated the city of Aleppo from Syrian strongman Bashar Al-Assad, his SAA and his Russian backers.
(snip)
The Russians know Tartus is in trouble. On December 3, commercial satellite imagery revealed that every major Russian warship known to operate from Tartus – three missile frigates, a diesel-electric attack submarine and two lightly-armed support ships – had unmoored from the port’s three large piers and sailed into the Med.
It’s possible the war in Ukraine is about to cost the Russian navy an entire ocean and a lot of influence. The Soviet Union, and later Russia, maintained a presence at Tartus since the 1970s, but it was mostly a token presence in the two decades between the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the commencement of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
(snip)
All that is to say, losing Tartus would be catastrophic for Russian power projection in Southern Europe and North Africa. Realistically, the only way for the Kremlin to replace the vital shore infrastructure in Tartus is to regain access to the Med via the Bosporus.
But there’s almost no prospect of that happening while the war in Ukraine still rages. Russian president Vladimir Putin may soon face an unhappy choice: keep fighting in Ukraine but lose influence in the Mediterranean region; or sue for peace in Ukraine and open up access from the Black Sea to the Med.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
We’re simply seeing the movements happening of ‘the deal’ already in play.
Interesting article. Thanks.
Again.....We’re simply seeing the movements happening of ‘the deal’ already in play.
I wonder what all this means for the world on a whole. Will this work to the benefit, or detriment, of Israel and the world?
What damn deal, spit it out man!
If they had to abandon Putin’s flagship, the tugboat Stolichnaya, the warships will soon be dead in the Mediterranean waters.
Speculation.
We’re the last to know exactly what the deals are.....but you know they’re in motion when you see leaders activities on the world stage as we do now. Trump announcing the US should not be involved with Syria spoke volumes of ‘deals of understanding’ between leaders of what’s going down in Syria now.....as a good example.
Rather than agree to a peace deal with Ukraine, what’s to stop Russia from making some treaty with their new pals the Iranians for some port in Iran in exchange for S-400 missiles systems and/or nuclear technology?
Interesting point, tugboats as strategic assets that must be based. They do lack the range to operate with a fleet lacking a tanker and the Russians don't have a place on the Med to fill one. With the fall of Syria, Sultan Erdogan gains a lot of leverage at the Bosporus.
Assad was cowed and posed no direct threat to Israel.
Indirectly, Assad allowed Syria to be used by Iran to supply hezbollah. That is now over.
hezbollah was defeated temporarily on the ground by Israel. But now with no resupply from Iran, hezbollah will never again seriously endanger Israel.
On the other hand, being a Jew with an ISIS neighbor is no bueno. I give it 2-3 years before ISIS Syria becomes an actual threat to Israel. That’ll be about the time Israel is rested, resupplied, and finished with hamass and whatever is left of hezbollah.
So, while this gives Israel immediate relief, and in the long run I’d guess they’ll still be fine, look for ISIS to initiate war on Israel in about 2028. IMHO.
OK sorry, my bad
But you are right ... they use the threat so often that it becomes meaningless
If someone waves a Big Gun around and constantly threatens to use it but never does, eventually people will figure out that he’s bluffing
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