by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
When former president Dmitry Medvedev (leading image, left), deputy head of the Security Council; the Russian military bloggers; and the GRU’s favoured journalist are as silent on Russian military action in Syria as they are at the moment, the signal they are sending is unmistakeably loud.
It is the sound of recriminations for President Vladimir Putin (centre); for the commanders of Russia’s forces in Syria; for General Valery Gerasimov (right), head of the General Staff, the GRU, and the Defense Ministry – all for having failed to detect, warn, or act on the Turkish, Israeli and American preparation of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces for their drive to Damascus to replace Bashar al-Assad, and allowing the Israeli Air Force (IAF) to stop Hezbollah from reinforcing its units in Syria from Lebanon, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from flying reinforcements from Iran.
“Yes,” says a well-informed Moscow source, “what we see in Syria is the sum of the worst misjudgements and mistakes the Russians made in the Ukraine. This is the Kremlin for one hundred percent. But in the Ukraine there has been learning from the mistakes and recovery. I don’t believe the defeat in Syria will lead to Putin making more concessions to Washington on Ukraine. On the contrary, I believe it hardens the positions on the Ukraine and releases the General Staff to wage strategic war with the US.”
There is a line of thinking in the General Staff, hinted in reporting by Russian military bloggers, which has proposed to preserve the bases at Tartus and Khmeimim, and establish a defence in depth between the north-south D35 road and the sea. This territory is west of the M5 highway linking Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus, all of which HTS have captured. This roughly approximates the territory known in the Ottoman Empire until 1914 as the sanjak of Latakia.
A reliable military source says “the Russians would need to hold the north-south M53, D35, and D34 highways. This would give [Syrian Special Forces Commander General Suhayl] Hassan the capacity to maintain the defence all along this new border. This means retaking Masyaf, an important road junction west of Hama, and also Rabu.”
Hassan was last reported to have been headed for Latakia; there is no sign that he and his forces are capable of fight.
Assad and his family have arrived in Moscow with family members, the state news agency Tass has reported. Tass added the hint that negotiations are under way for evacuation of the bases. “Russian officials are in touch with representatives of armed Syrian opposition, whose leaders have guaranteed security of Russian military bases and diplomatic missions on the Syrian territory.”
The tactical and operational difficulties are insurmountable, another Russian source believes. He acknowledges there is no sign of the political will for the fight at the Kremlin. There are more signs, the source adds, that the order has been given to negotiate with the Turks a safe-passage agreement for full withdrawal from the country of all Russians.
Local reports are currently indicating that HTS and Turkish forces have moved west of the M5 highway to take Jebla, a town six kilometres from Khmeimim. If true, this indicates that the fight-back option has run out of opportunity on the ground, and will in the Kremlin.
The only senior Russian official to break the silence has been Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He was speaking in Doha on Saturday, November 7, before the fall of Damascus and the flight of Assad. The HTS operation was understood in advance, Lavrov admitted. It had been “carefully and long planned and is an attempt to change the situation on the ground, to change the balance of power. We will oppose this in every possible way, support the legitimate Syrian authorities and at the same time actively promote the need to resume dialogue with the opposition, as required by UN Security Council Resolution 2254.”
Lavrov also acknowledged the strategic scale of the defeat Russia has suffered. “Nothing goes smoothly in world diplomacy, but the events which we are witnessing today, they are clearly geared to undermine everything we have been doing during those years.”
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