Russian military intervention and aid to Syria #13

GarryB wrote:I would trust Trump.

This sounds like a joke.

In the refered to Turkey, Russia has been receiving drone attacks from the area of Idlib, and Turkey does nothing to stop it.

Like the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, Turkey is in the side of the losers in this war, and neither will have benefits.

The doubt in the case of US, Israel and Turkey is only about the size of the loses, still to be determined.

Here is a 1 hour 32 minute video(watch the full video) on how Russia changed the Syrian conflict.

https://southfront.org/russian-military-campaign-in-syria-2015-2018/

par far wrote:Here is a 1 hour 32 minute video(watch the full video) on how Russia changed the Syrian conflict.

https://southfront.org/russian-military-campaign-in-syria-2015-2018/

Does anyone here know who hell southfront are exactly? I don't know myself, but that report is a stellar piece of work, imo. It's so unfortunate that the vast majority of people I might think to share it with will just see it as further evidence that I'm an obsessed weirdo. That piece telescopes a great deal of what is relevant into 90 or so minutes.

eehnie wrote:In the refered to Turkey, Russia has been receiving drone attacks from the area of Idlib, and Turkey does nothing to stop it.

Like the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, Turkey is in the side of the losers in this war, and neither will have benefits.

The doubt in the case of US, Israel and Turkey is only about the size of the loses, still to be determined.

If I remember right, you're a citizen of a country that has historical antipathy toward Turkey. I sympathize with that, but unfortunately Turkey is a country that for several reasons has cards to play in regard to shaping the final outcome of this conflict. So, unfortunately, their interests will have to be accommodated, within reason of course.

BKP wrote:I sympathize with that, but unfortunately Turkey is a country that for several reasons has cards to play in regard to shaping the final outcome of this conflict. So, unfortunately, their interests will have to be accommodated, within reason of course.

The big picture of course is that with the current hubristic demands of the Exceptional Nation that Turkey obey their Master, and the economic sabotage being used to inflict the "price tag" for disobedience, the potential exists for clever diplomacy to cause a schism in HATO and engineer the Turks to cross the floor and ally with the Forces of Light against the neoliberal globalist NWO Darkness. Yeah, its sounds like fantasy, but these days, who knows?...

Turkey remaining in HATO as a Trojan horse while becoming a member of the SCO and taking a full part in Eurasian integration (alongside Iran)?  Priceless, and sure to cause more than a few strokes in Mordor on the Potomac.  

BKP wrote:

eehnie wrote:In the refered to Turkey, Russia has been receiving drone attacks from the area of Idlib, and Turkey does nothing to stop it.

Like the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, Turkey is in the side of the losers in this war, and neither will have benefits.

The doubt in the case of US, Israel and Turkey is only about the size of the loses, still to be determined.

If I remember right, you're a citizen of a country that has historical antipathy toward Turkey. I sympathize with that, but unfortunately Turkey is a country that for several reasons has cards to play in regard to shaping the final outcome of this conflict. So, unfortunately, their interests will have to be accommodated, within reason of course.

My country, the Basque Country, had not historical relation with Turkey. Historical antipathy is surely much lower than in the countries of the Balkans or in Russia. This is not a factor in my opinion.

Today, in my country, like in most of Europe, if not all, there is a bad opinion of Turkey because of their crimes against the Kurds and Armenians.

The defeat of Turkey will have consequences for them, Turkey will not be treated like a winner. The real winners will not give them advantages.

GarryB wrote:Like it or not, Bulgaria turned down a source of income and assured gas supplies from Russia, which directly led to Russia giving up on the EU in terms of the south stream and to offering Turkey control of gas supplies via the south to the EU. At that time Turkey was shooting down Russian aircraft over Syria... yet they were not as dumb as Bulgaria... they will cooperate on gas supplies to the EU... of course Turkey is not Russia... Russia nor the Soviet Union before it ever blocked gas supplies to the EU, during the entire period of the cold war and beyond that supplies were piped there...

Ukraine on the other hand stole supplies meant for the EU and therefore interrupted supplies... the interruption was blamed on Russia of course even though the gas is beyond their control once it enters the Ukraine.

Now Turkey will be in the same position as the Ukraine... I wonder how often faults will occur that stop gas supplies going to Europe?

Alternative supplies from the US are far too expensive so even if there is a problem Russia will likely still get the sales, but it will be up to the EU to deal with Turkey to sort things out.

If I was Russia I would sell all my gas to Turkey and let Turkey sell to Europe as they like, then EU rules will not apply... Russian companies could even own the pipelines as the gas will be Turkish... that is not what they intended when they passed that law, but tough.

I said it you some years ago. The main Russian pipelines toward Europe will be the Nord Stream pipelines by the Baltic sea. And the US is criying a lot about it.



If you look at the map, the minimum distance (straight line) from the Russian Arctic gas fields until France, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Spain, Portugal and Northern Italy goes by Belarus, not even Ukraine, that is the shortest supply way toward the Balkans. The Nord Stream pipeline is perfect also for South Western Europe. Basically, the Russian gas will not give a tour in the range of thousands of Km to reach South Western Europe by Turkey, only because some people with very little knowledge of geography says it. Also to note that to transport the gas by warmer countries requires a bigger effort to keep the gas liquid. And finally to note that Spain and South Italy receive gas today from Algeria and Libia.

The pipeline to Turkey is for gas for Turkey. Neither Russia and the European Union have interest in to give to Turkey any power in the gas transit. Turkey has not control over Russian gas, and never will be given this position. And turkey is easily avoidable for both, Russia and the European Union. The rest are dreams of low documented "oil and gas strategists".

GarryB wrote:Interesting chart if you read it correctly... those blue lines are proposed lines... the only actual pipes are a small pipe going to Turkey and pipes crossing the Ukraine... the three blue pipes going through Belarus, latvia and the baltic don't exist... right now the gas goes through the Ukraine... they are adding only two new lines... one through the baltic that bypasses the baltic states and goes straight from Russia to Germany and one that goes through the Black Sea directly to Turkey... and once those two are up and running it is most likely they will then greatly reduce the flow through the Ukraine or perhaps even stop the flow all together because the Ukrainians are so unreasonable and they have a history of stealing gas meant for other customers...

No, there definitely are gas export pipelines through Belarus....  eg the Yamal and Northern Lights lines



(old graphic, still refers to South Stream aka "free cash for the Bulgars" line.. hehe)

How ironic that two of the ukr pipelines are Soyuz (union) and Brotherhood... its kind of a sick joke nowadays...

eehnie wrote:
If you look at the map, the minimum distance (straight line) from the Russian Arctic gas fields until France, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Spain, Portugal and Northern Italy goes by Belarus, not even Ukraine, that is the shortest supply way toward the Balkans. The Nord Stream pipeline is perfect also for South Western Europe. Basically, the Russian gas will not give a tour in the range of thousands of Km to reach South Western Europe by Turkey, only because some people with very little knowledge of geography says it. Also to note that to transport the gas by warmer countries requires a bigger effort to keep the gas liquid. And finally to note that Spain and South Italy receive gas today from Algeria and Libia.

The pipeline to Turkey is for gas for Turkey. Neither Russia and the European Union have interest in to give to Turkey any power in the gas transit. Turkey has not control over Russian gas, and never will be given this position. And turkey is easily avoidable for both, Russia and the European Union. The rest are dreams of low documented "oil and gas strategists".

Come on, you can do better than that. The map you quote from is 15 years old and a lot has changed since then. In particular Turkstream is nearing completion.

In my view the problem is not getting gas into the EU, it is what happens to it then. There is just not enough west/east or especially north/south pipeline capacity installed to allow much change in gas routes over now. It is very expensive to route new pipelines within the EU compared to under the Baltic or Black Seas.

But this is really going off thread now.

JohninMK wrote:

eehnie wrote:I said it you some years ago. The main Russian pipelines toward Europe will be the Nord Stream pipelines by the Baltic sea. And the US is criying a lot about it.



If you look at the map, the minimum distance (straight line) from the Russian Arctic gas fields until France, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Spain, Portugal and Northern Italy goes by Belarus, not even Ukraine, that is the shortest supply way toward the Balkans. The Nord Stream pipeline is perfect also for South Western Europe. Basically, the Russian gas will not give a tour in the range of thousands of Km to reach South Western Europe by Turkey, only because some people with very little knowledge of geography says it. Also to note that to transport the gas by warmer countries requires a bigger effort to keep the gas liquid. And finally to note that Spain and South Italy receive gas today from Algeria and Libia.

The pipeline to Turkey is for gas for Turkey. Neither Russia and the European Union have interest in to give to Turkey any power in the gas transit. Turkey has not control over Russian gas, and never will be given this position. And turkey is easily avoidable for both, Russia and the European Union. The rest are dreams of low documented "oil and gas strategists".

Come on, you can do better than that. The map you quote from is 15 years old and a lot has changed since then. In particular Turkstream is nearing completion.

In my view the problem is not getting gas into the EU, it is what happens to it then. There is just not enough west/east or especially north/south pipeline capacity installed to allow much change in gas routes over now. It is very expensive to route new pipelines within the EU compared to under the Baltic or Black Seas.

But this is really going off thread now.

What is your problem with the map. It is a map that includes South-Western Europe, which was necessary for the comment, and show many connections habitually ignored. Also you can see which of the project of the time have been done and which no.

I can do better yes, but you will need to do better. The current OPAL and Gazela pipelines connect the Nord Stream pipeline with Austria and Italy and are enough to absorb the total demand of Russian gas of both countries. In fact, Nord Stream + Nord Stream 2 are enough to absorb totally the exports of Russian gas to the West of Germany, Austria and Italy (including the 3 countries). Look again at the map I posted before.

The alone pending solution would be in the Balkans. With 3 supply options in competence, the power of Poland, Ukraine and Turkey over the Russian gas will be very low:

- The transit of Russian gas by Turkey toward the Balkans can be totally bypassed, like proves the current situation.
- The transit of Russian gas by Ukraine toward the Balkans can be totally bypassed, even without the need of the new Turkish line.
- The transit of gas by Poland to the rest of the EU (basically Germany), can be reduced to 0, if the countries involved allow not transit of the Russian gas of the Yamal line toward the Balkans. It means the Yamal line would be reduced to the supply of Belarus, Kaliningrad, Lithuania, Poland, and maybe the Czech Republic if this transit is not allowed. And for it the collaboration of Poland is not required. Even, now Poland is forced to beg to other countries to take measures to allow the transit of gas from the Yamal pipeline to the Balkans.

To note that the capacity of the Yamal pipeline allows to bypass the Ukranian and Turkish pipelines. The capacity of the Ukranian pipelines allows to bypass the Yamal and the Turkish pipelines. But the Turkish pipeline, with far lower capacity, is not enough to supply the entire region and needs to be combined with another option, allowing to bypass only one of the other two.

BKP wrote:

Does anyone here know who hell southfront are exactly? I don't know myself, but that report is a stellar piece of work, imo. It's so unfortunate that the vast majority of people I might think to share it with will just see it as further evidence that I'm an obsessed weirdo. That piece telescopes a great deal of what is relevant into 90 or so minutes.

I followed them on facebook in 2014/15 when Ukraina started. They were a small group back then, maybe 500+ followers writing news here and there. Pretty much like every pro-Russian/Ukrainian facebook page in that time.
Later they made a website and started posting there, then twitter and it all started growing with Syrian conflict and Russian intervention. Now they are fairly big. But still they ask for donation every month. So it seems like they are not getting money from no one(government/s).

Tartous

First photo of part of Tartus airdefence. Some powerful radars there. They got a chance to test lowAltitude detection in recent months with all those drones&rockets flying toward them.

Kasta 2E2
Podlet-K
P-18

Details/source for every radar on photo.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=sr&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fdiana-mihailova.livejournal.com%2F2527788.html&edit-text=&act=url

A total of 63,012 military personnel, including 434 generals and 25,738 officers, received combat experience.
Combat experience was gained by 4,349 specialists of missile forces and artillery, 87% of operational and tactical crews, 91% of army and 97% of military transport aircraft, and 60% of strategic and long-range aviation crews.
Every fourth soldier who performed tasks in the RAA was awarded a state award. All participants in the operation are marked with departmental insignia.
During the operation, VKS completed 39,000 sorties, including more than 20,000 at night. During the active phases of the operation, the intensity of the use of combat aviation reached more than 100 sorties per day. Each plane made daily 3-4 flights. The maximum number of sorties per day - 139, was completed on November 20, 2015.
Navy accomplished 189 military campaigns, in which 86 ships, 14 submarines and 83 ships took part.
The pilots of the SUVK "Admiral Kuznetsov" carried out 420 sorties, including 117 at night, and destroyed 1252 terrorist objects.
The UAV carried more than 25,000 sorties, 47,522 enemy targets were opened. Every day, up to 70 UAVs (such as "Forpost" and "Orlan-10") flew in the Syrian sky.
Terrorist targets inflicted 100 beats by sea-launched cruise missiles Caliber and 66 attacks by air-launched cruise missiles.
The Tu-22M3 bombers carried out 369 sorties.
As a result of air strikes and cruise missiles 121,466 terrorist objects were destroyed, including 970 field camps, 20,513 strong points, 9,941 ammunition and fuel depots, 649 tanks, 731 infantry fighting vehicles, 8,927 vehicles with antiaircraft guns. Over 86,000 militants were eliminated, including more than 4,500 immigrants from Russia and CIS countries.
In order to support the activities of the grouping of troops, 424 flights were carried out by sea and 2,785 by air. During the course of which, 3,250 people were transported by sea and 4,501 units of weapons and military equipment, 1,559,000 tons of cargo, 91,285 people by air, over 1,000 weapons and military equipment, and 55,846 tons of cargo. Every day, from Russia to Syria, air and sea transport carried out an average of 2,000 tons of various cargoes.
Medical support tasks on a rotational basis were carried out by 10 special medical units, 1,220 Russian military doctors provided qualified military assistance to 88,318 Syrians.

Official statistics of the Ministry of Defense of Russia on the operation in Syria

https://vpk.name/news/225435_rossiya_narashivaet_vts_s_siriei__rosteh.html

Russia is stepping up military technical cooperation with Syria - "rostec"

Russia will be more likely to issue loans for the purchase of military equipment and weapons

Kubinka (Moscow region). August 22. INTERFAX-AVN - Russia is stepping up military technical cooperation with Syria and Algeria, said the state Corporation "rostec".

"The volume of orders for Russian equipment, the leader is India. On the second place China. We are stepping up cooperation in military-technical cooperation with Vietnam, Algeria, Syria," - said in an interview to "Interfax" the Director of industrial cluster "Arms" of the state Corporation "rostec" Sergey Abramov.

According to him, currently there is the potential for the promotion abroad of aircraft systems, air defense systems, armored vehicles.

"It is planned to increase exports by providing additional convenient for the customer services and incentives, such as lending, procurement, after sales service and the localization of production", - said Sergei Abramov.

He added that another niche for development is the modernization of the previous generations of Russian art, which exploit the foreign customers.

"If we consider the export market by regions is distributed as follows: more than 50% of the countries of South - East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, about 20% of the Arab world and North Africa, 15% Latin America, 8% CIS," said Sergei Abramov.

On the eve of the forum "Army-2018", the head of "Rosoboronexport" Alexander Mikheyev said that Russia is seeking an alternative to the dollar in the calculations for the supplied equipment, weapons and services.

"We are considering the possibility of settlements in national currencies is the Indian rupee, the Chinese yuan, derhami and rubles," - said A. Miheev.

According to him, Russia does not reduce the intensity of the negotiations. "Accordingly, the calculations are with our partners. They are sensitive to this situation because the sanctions are directed not only against Russian organizations, including Rosoboronexport, but also against our partners," - said A. Miheev.

Now in Med Sea:

CG Marshal Ustinov
DDG Severomorsk
DDG Yaroslav Mudryy
FFG Admiral Grigorovich
FFG Admiral Essen
FFL Pytlivyy
FSG Vyshniy Volochek
FSG Grad Sviyazhsk
FSG Velikiy Ustyug
LST Orsk
LST Nikolay Fil'chenkov
MS Turbinist
MS Valentin Pikul
SS Kolpino
SS Velikiy Novgorod

Nikolay Muru

calm wrote:Now in Med Sea:

CG Marshal Ustinov
DDG Severomorsk
DDG Yaroslav Mudryy
FFG Admiral Grigorovich
FFG Admiral Essen
FFL Pytlivyy
FSG Vyshniy Volochek
FSG Grad Sviyazhsk
FSG Velikiy Ustyug
LST Orsk
LST Nikolay Fil'chenkov
MS Turbinist
MS Valentin Pikul
SS Kolpino
SS Velikiy Novgorod

Nikolay Muru

Almost as if they expect another chem false flag situation?

That's a nice setup they got there. Should probably add couple of undeclared SSNs.

Gotta hand it to RU Navy, they may not have many vessels but they have testicular glands to spare. Polar opposite of Chinese Navy...

PapaDragon wrote:

calm wrote:Now in Med Sea:

CG Marshal Ustinov
DDG Severomorsk
DDG Yaroslav Mudryy
FFG Admiral Grigorovich
FFG Admiral Essen
FFL Pytlivyy
FSG Vyshniy Volochek
FSG Grad Sviyazhsk
FSG Velikiy Ustyug
LST Orsk
LST Nikolay Fil'chenkov
MS Turbinist
MS Valentin Pikul
SS Kolpino
SS Velikiy Novgorod

Nikolay Muru

Almost as if they expect another chem false flag situation?

That's a nice setup they got there. Should probably add couple of undeclared SSNs.

Gotta hand it to RU Navy, they may not have many vessels but they have testicular glands to spare. Polar opposite of Chinese Navy...

They are.

https://southfront.org/u-s-prepares-new-strikes-on-government-facilities-in-syria-russian-military/

True, all is being set up for another strike against Syria. Since the war is finishing and the fear for what comes next grows, I guess the pressure from Israel to military cripple Syria is huge. Would think Russia should raise their game and maybe give those new MiG-31K a opportunity to stretch their legs a bit?

Konashenkov with very detailed claims about the new staging of a CW attack:

http://tass.com/defense/1018635

PapaDragon wrote:
Gotta hand it to RU Navy, they may not have many vessels but they have testicular glands to spare.

Does anybody really expect the Russian Navy to fight the USN? Btw what's the use of false flag operations of this kind? Has previous "retaliation" stopped the advance of the SAA?