Russia can rebuild its Syria forces in 'a few hours' - By Vladimir Isachenkov - http://www.ohio.com/news/world/putin-russia-can-rebuild-its-syria-forces-in-a-few-hours-1.669927?localLinksEnabled=false
Signaling Russia's intention to maintain a high-profile role in Syria despite its partial military withdrawal, President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that Moscow could still build up its forces within "a few hours" if needed and will continue helping the Syrian army fight extremist groups.
Putin, who recalled some of Russia's warplanes from Syria earlier this week, said Moscow will keep enough forces there to continue the fight against the Islamic State group, the Nusra Front and other extremist organizations. It will also continue to boost the Syrian military with weapons, training and operational guidance.
In an apparent warning to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others who had talked about the possibility of sending troops into Syria, Putin also emphasized that the Russian military will keep all its air defense missile systems, including the powerful S-400s, at its air base in Syria. It will stand ready to use them "against any targets that we would consider a threat to our servicemen," he said.
Putin's statements underlined his intention to maintain a strong military presence in Syria to consolidate the military and political gains achieved in Russia's 5½-month air campaign. That campaign has helped turn the tide of war and allowed Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces to make significant advances ahead of peace talks, and established Russia as a major player in the diplomatic effort to determine Syria's future.
Speaking during a Kremlin ceremony honoring Russian military officers who have taken part in the Syrian campaign, Putin said that the action in Syria has demonstrated Russia's "leadership, will and responsibility" in fighting "enemies of civilization."
In Geneva, the U.N. envoy for Syria said significant gaps remain between the sides taking part in the Syrian peace talks.
Staffan de Mistura emerged Thursday from the fourth day of talks to tell reporters that "the distance between the two sides is large."
De Mistura was shuttling between the Syrian government representatives and those of the Western-backed opposition during the so-called proximity talks.
He said he had "substantive" talks with the opposition High Negotiations Committee on Thursday and that he would be hosting both sides separately on Friday.
He also said areas of commonality between the two sides include a belief in preserving the "integrity of the country."
De Mistura added that there were no discussions about "federalism" - a reference to the main Syrian Kurdish group's declaration earlier in the day of a de facto federal region in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria.
The Syrian government and its opponents have rejected the declaration by the Kurdish faction, the Democratic Union Party.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the declaration is unconstitutional and worthless.
Russia backs self-ruling Kurdish buffer state at Turkey's back door - http://www.debka.com/article/25306/Russia-backs-self-ruling-Kurdish-buffer-state-at-Turkey's-back-door
Just four days after drawing down the bulk of Russian forces in Syria, President Vladimir Putin was quietly redrawing the Syrian map on federal lines, and planting Russian influence in its first semiautonomous region. debkafile's intelligence sources report that the Russian leader's hand was behind the establishment of the Syrian Kurdish federal region on March 17, at a meeting of Kurdish Democratic Union Party leaders in the Syrian town of Rmeilan.
The new self-ruling entity covers three Kurdish-controlled enclaves:: Jazira, Hassakeh and Qamishli and the two cities of Kobani and Afrin, They include areas captured in battle from the Islamic State.
One of the DUP leaders, Nawaf Khalil, noted the presence at the ceremony of representatives of the three enclaves, some parts of which are still controlled either by the Syrian army, Syrian rebel groups or ISIS.
The Syrian Kurds are expected next to fight, with Russian backing, to connect the three enclaves into a contiguous self-ruled territory 500-kilometer long, adjacent to the Turkish border.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has warned repeatedly that Ankara would not tolerate the establishment of Kurdish self-rule in Syria and would send his army across the border to prevent it. Our sources report that Putin has assured Kurdish leaders that the Russian air force would be there to defend the new region if Turkey invaded.
Erdogan tried to enlist the Obama administration for action to deter the Kurds from its step.
But the State Department only responded to the Kurdish initiative after the event. "We don't support self-ruled, semiautonomous zones inside Syria," said State Department spokesman John Kirby Thursday night. "Whole, unified, nonsectarian Syria -- that's the goal."
The new Kurdish federal region turns out to be the first no-fly zone over northern Syria, which the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia long advocated, but which has finally comes into being under the Russian aegis.
President Bashar Assad, Moscow's ally, strongly opposes the Kurdish move, as the first step in the country's breakup into ethnic or religious federal entities. But Assad is helpless to fight back or bomb the Kurdish enclaves when Moscow stands behind them and some Russian warplanes remain in Syria for any contingencies.
debkafile's military and intelligence sources find significance in the location of the Kurds' ceremonial declaration of their semiautonomous region: The only US base in Syria is located outside Rmeilan. It houses US and allied special operations forces with helicopters for fighting the Islamic State.
Clearly, Putin was perfectly willing to show the Americans what he was about.
In any case, US officials, such as Secretary of State John Kerry, have been talking freely to Middle East leaders about a federal solution for Syria as Washington's Plan B, should the current talks between the warring sides in Geneva fail to reach an accord on a political solution for ending the calamitous five-year war.
Putin's power move in Syria puts Russia on par with US - http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Analysis-Putins-power-move-in-Syria-puts-Russia-on-par-with-US-447957
Russian premier amazed observers on Monday when he announced plans to gradually withdraw his forces from Syria.
One did not need to see the White House spokesperson squirm and stutter on Monday to understand that nobody in this world has a clue just what is going through the head of - and what is motivating the decisions made by - Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Just as he surprised the world six months ago when he decided to send his military to intervene in the Syrian civil war, he similarly amazed observers on Monday when he announced plans to gradually withdraw his forces from there.
Putin said Monday night that Russia had achieved its goals in Syria. It's difficult to judge that statement since it's been unclear from the start what those goals were. If the aims were limited - preventing the collapse of President Bashar Assad's regime - then the mission was indeed accomplished.
The Russian air force succeeded in keeping Assad in power. It prevented the regime from disintegrating and enabled Assad's ground forces to expand their control over Syrian territory while allowing the government to dictate the pace of events as the bloody civil war enters its sixth year.
Putin achieved this at a reasonably low cost, even in Russian terms. The only blow Russia absorbed was one fighter jet shot down by the Turkish military and a very small number of casualties.
Russian intervention has also changed both the regional as well as the global balance of power. It has created a set of circumstances that make it conducive to maintain the fragile ceasefire which nobody believed would go into effect, let alone hold up for three weeks, as it has.
More than anything, the Russian intervention places Moscow on an equal superpower plane with the United States, whose policies in Syria in particular - and the Middle East in general - is losing all credibility and support amongst its friends.
Putin undoubtedly acted with wisdom and caution, particularly in light of the fact that he avoided getting caught up in the Syrian quagmire. The Russian president avoided the same mistakes made by then-Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who was seduced into sending troops in the late 1970'S to Afghanistan to fight a war that lasted eight years and eventually led to a humiliating withdrawal. That failure indirectly contributed to the eventual collapse of the Soviet empire.
In addition to his military maneuvers, Putin understands that Syria will never return to being the sovereign state it was with its traditional borders, as was the case in the period before 2011. This explains Russia's readiness to lead a diplomatic effort that would turn Syria into a federally run political entity comprising a number of provinces - an Alawite (Shi'ite) fiefdom in the coastal area ruled by Assad, along Kurdish and Druse enclaves as well as chunks for the rebels.
Nonetheless, only time will tell if the Russian withdrawal indicates that Assad's forces will consolidate their power in the long run or whether it is a signal to him to compromise with the rebels and reach a political agreement with them - or both.
The Russian gambit also serves the interests of both Iran and Israel. Russian intervention has led to a certain rift with Iran, or, at the very least, Iranian discomfort. All of a sudden, Tehran finds itself playing second fiddle to Putin. Now Iran will return to its customary position of buttressing Assad.
As for Israel, the Russian decision is both a blessing and curse. On the one hand, Israel gets back its freedom to maneuver militarily, which it exercised almost completely before Moscow entered the fray. It will no longer have to coordinate its aerial activity in the skies above Syria with the Russians, nor will it need to clench its teeth in frustration as Russian fighter jets penetrate Israeli airspace over the Golan Heights.
On the other hand, Israel's regained freedom to act could come up against Iran's re-established position of dominance on the Syrian front.
This, of course, assumes that the Russian decision is final - even if the withdrawal takes weeks to fully implement - and that there is no ruse behind it that would shock the world.
Some answers may surface this week when President Reuven Rivlin meets the enigmatic Putin in Moscow this week.
Russia to keep S-400 in Syria until Saudi warplanes leave Turkey - http://www.debka.com/article/25298/Russia-to-keep-S-400-in-Syria-until-Saudi-warplanes-leave-Turkey
The highly-advanced S-400 air defense missiles will also eventually be evacuated from Syria, said high-ranking officials in Moscow on Wednesday, March 17, according to an exclusive debkafile report. But their presence for now is crucial in view of the continuing Saudi buildup of warplanes in Turkey, close to the Syrian border.
Our military sources disclose that the initial Saudi deployment of four warplanes to the Turkish air base of Incirlik earlier this month, has been expanded to sixteen, while Saudi officials declare that Riyadh and Ankara are preparing to intervene jointly in the Syrian conflict.
According to our sources, Turkish armored and infantry troops have already crossed the border and set up positions in the northern Syrian province of Idlib, just a few hundred meters inside the border.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov referred Sunday, March 14, to evidence of "a creeping expansion by Turkey in the sovereign nation of Syria."
This was taken as a warning that Moscow would not tolerate any further Turkish encroachments in Syria, any more than it would accept Saudi air force intrusions of Syrian air space.
The Russians infer from Turkish military movements that Ankara aims to establish enclaves inside Syria as no-fly or security zones, which Moscow has consistently opposed. The presence of the top-grade S-400 anti-air missiles in Syria is meant to obstruct this plan and discourage Turkish and Saudi aerial flights over Syria.
At the same time, the presence of the S-400 missiles close by is a worry for the Israeli Air force. The batteries, currently positioned at the Latakia base, would cover a broad stretch of air space over northern and central Israel if they were moved further south.
A word of reassurance on this score was understood to have come from Russian military sources Wednesday. They said that the S-400 would be removed eventually, leaving behind only the Pantsir-S1 anti-air missile systems, which have never posed a challenge to the Israeli air force in the last decade.
debkafile's military sources also confirm that Putin has so far kept his promise to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to withhold advanced S-400 and S-300 air defense missiles from Iran, by executing a series of delays.
On Feb. 17, Iranian military officials announced a ceremony the next day at the Caspian port of Astrakhan for the handover of the first batch of S-300s. The ceremony never took place.
This week, Russian arms industry sources announced that the missiles would be not be delivered to Iran before August or September - another delay, which is unlikely to be the last.
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