After the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime, Russia could lose its base in Syria's Tartus port, which would leave Russia without its only fuel port in the Mediterranean Sea and threaten NATO from the south It would cripple Moscow's capabilities. .
newsweek on monday quotation Military analysts detected signs that Russian troops were withdrawing from Tartus early in the rebel advance last week. Ukrainian intelligence said Russia had withdrawn its warships from the port, including patrol boats and dry cargo ships.
Satellite images also showed two Russian naval vessels and a frigate. Admiral Gorshkov and an auxiliary ship returning from the Mediterranean to Russia. This would suggest that the Russians are concerned about using the Tartus base, at least for the time being.
The Russian Navy had five naval ships and one submarine. base in Tartus before a lightning rebel rebellion broke out less than two weeks later. An auxiliary ship discovered on its way back to Russia. Yelnia It is a refueling aircraft whose functions are essential for operating other surface ships.
Russia built The Tartus base was used in 1977 and ceased use after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but resumed operations in 2015 when Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war to rescue Assad. Russia signed In 2019, Syria entered into a 49-year lease on the base with the Assad regime, an agreement hailed at the time as a major step toward building permanent military and economic ties with Syria.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Tartus naval base became even more important. Russia needed to make NATO feel vulnerable to its south. Russia actually wanted to move most of its Mediterranean fleet to the Black Sea for support against Ukraine, while Turkey refused This was to allow passage through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. Russia was content to use captured warships in the Mediterranean to threaten NATO by making the Mediterranean unsafe for aircraft carriers.
In this November 20, 2017 photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) embraces Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at Bocharov Ruchey's official residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Kremlin pool photo, via AP)
The Russian military also appears to have abandoned its air base in Khmeimim, Latakia province. Russia built the base in 2015 as a sign of its commitment to the Assad regime and signed a 49-year lease on the land in 2017.
The airbase is of strategic importance to Moscow, as Russia uses the base to help the Syrian army crush the rebels as well as provide air support for mercenary operations in Africa. It has become. Khmeimim is just about 20 miles The rebels would have seemed particularly vulnerable to Russian military planners, as they were covering a swift march toward Damascus from the ground and have faced threats from rocket and drone attacks in the past. .
Kremlin officially claim The Tartus-based fleet has not abandoned the port, but is simply conducting “large-scale naval exercises.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the Collective Security Treaty Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, Thursday, November 28, 2024. (Gabril Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin pool photo, via AP)
Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said On Monday, Russian officials announced that they were “taking the necessary steps to establish contacts with those who can ensure the security of military bases in Syria.” Other Kremlin officials told Russian state media that Syrian opposition leaders had given assurances that Russian military bases and diplomatic facilities would not be violated.
There is some evidence to support these claims, as the Russian embassy in Damascus was abandoned during the insurgency. A storm has come Iranian Embassy on Sunday.
Iran, like Russia, fought in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime. Iranian state media tried to fabricate the humiliating attack on the embassy by claiming that the militants were not from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the al-Qaeda splinter that led the rebellion to victory. .
