re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Anton Gerashchenko
@Gerashchenko_en

Russian Z-blogger Fighterbomber says the situation in Syria is catastrophic. According to him, Russian military bases and airfield are virtually unprotected from shelling, there is nowhere to withdraw them, and evacuation is completely impossible. He says they probably will come under artillery and drone strikes in the near future.

In his Telegram channel, Z-blogger wrote the following:

"It is still difficult to make any predictions on the situation in Syria, but we can state that the situation has become about the same as in 2015, except for one factor.
The factor of the emergence of drones. Drones, which no one anywhere has learned how to reliably fight against. All other weapons of the Islamists do not differ much in quality and quantity from what they had in 2015. The people are still the same.

How does this difference threaten us?

It threatens us with the loss of the air strike component, which accounts for 75 percent of the combat capabilities of our troops in the SAR. Khmeimim air base is not a multi-storey promo project with basements, it is a field with lightly assembled houses on top, which will cease to function as soon as the enemy comes within artillery fire range or drone flight range.
And then it will not be possible to use the maneuver of aviation, which saves us on the mainland.
There's nowhere to withdraw.
In fact, the only reserve airfields left in Syria are two airfields. This is a critical minimum.

The situation with the naval base in Tartus is about the same. Of course, it can be defended and held for quite a long time, if there is someone and something to do, but it will either not be able to function at all, or very limitedly.

It is almost impossible to evacuate the bases. At best, you can evacuate most of the personnel, documentation and transfer serviceable aircraft.
Well, some equipment, which is on the move, can be place on dry cargo ships and landing ships, but of course not all. All other equipment will remain on the bases.

Resistance to drones is also limited by the distance from the mainland with its supply of missiles and missile systems. But if it comes to FPV drones...

Therefore, the main task of our forces in Syria is to prevent the enemy from entering Latakia, even if we have to temporarily give up the rest of the territory. It's clear what and how to do in theory, but we'll see how it will look like in practice.

There is no need to be surprised by the speed of the enemy's seizure of territories, it works both ways.

We continue to observe, but the fact that the initiative is not on our side and the situation is very difficult cannot be denied."

Politico

Inside a high-stakes meeting between Ukraine and Trump’s team

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Vice President-elect JD VANCE, a prominent GOP skeptic of U.S. aid for Ukraine, met with a delegation of senior Ukrainian officials and other members of President-elect DONALD TRUMP’s inner circle in Washington on Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter confirmed.

The Ukrainian delegation traveled to Washington to meet with Vance as well as Rep. MIKE WALTZ (R-Fla.), Trump’s pick to be his national security adviser, and retired Gen. KEITH KELLOGG, Trump’s pick to be special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

The meeting, according to these people, was meant to be a meet and greet for both sides to get to know each other and start developing personal relationships ahead of Trump taking office in January. The meeting with Waltz and Vance was long and substantive, one of the people said, and the Ukrainian side left satisfied with how things went.

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Yermak also made a quick stop down to Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday where he huddled with incoming White House Chief of Staff SUSIE WILES, according to one of the people familiar with his movements.

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The 189 Americans killed when Gaddafi blew up Pan Am Flight 103 might disagree with you. No one should be allowed to murder that many Americans in cold blood and not ultimately face justice for it.

I don't know how anyone could call themselves "America First" and oppose Gaddafi getting what he deserved. How does an "America First" philosophy fit with allowing murderers of innocent Americans to remain in power?

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More like the US military members blown up in a German nightclub.

Anyway, Libya wasn't a CIA or US thing it was a French thing. The whole Arab Spring thing was overblown and overhyped by the press. It all started as a blood feud between the Mellouli family and the king of Tunisia after a member of the family was beaten by the king's security forces. The uprising in Tunisia was run out of the offices of Maher Mellouli in Le Cannet, France. They were a prominent family in Tunisia and also allied with Qaddafi. A deceased biz friend, Dirk Borgers, of Belgium, was Maher's partner in biz with Libya. Dirk was in one of the first WikiLeaks completely out of context. Dirk had negotiated a deal for Boer farmers to relocate and take over the olive groves of Libya with money put up by the Qaddafi for them to build processing plants and infrastructure. They were allowed full religious freedom to practice their Calvinism in Libya. However, that deal fell through thanks to the French supported revolution in Libya.

As a rule, Libyans do not like to get their hands dirty doing actual work and why Boers were invited in. Just like the Tauregs, and other black Africans, were given jobs to work in the oilfields of Libya.

FTR, while Qaddafi was a strongman dictator, he ruled at the pleasure of the 7 main tribes of Libya with Cyrenica (Tobruk/Benghazi area) always being rather independent doing it's own thing. In essence that eastern area was. the "wild west" part and rather lawless already. It was were the king had come from, who Qaddafi had overthrown. That's where the terrorist camps were located.

Part of the reason that France wanted Qaddafi gone was that he was trying to move the sovereign wealth fund out of French banks (not owned by Jews) to other banks. The French banks were charging Libya 3% of what was on deposit, sort of a reverse/negative savings account interest rate.

Also, Libya was about to build a 300,000 BPD refining complex at Ras Lanuf. While it has a few simple teapot type refineries, and one hydroskimming refinery, most of its oil for internal use was sent to Europe to be refined and returned as fuels, lubricants, and asphalt. This would have taken market share from mainly French and Italian refineries. I was involved in this part and had a proposal accepted before the fighting began for a hydroskimming refinery for Melitia crude near the Tunisian border. When it looked like Qaddafi might prevail (before airstrikes from French and English began) another proposal had been accepted to relocate the refinery at Yabucoa, PR which was about to be demolished, to Ras Lanuf as the building block for the larger complex. Bay Ltd from Texas was going to handle the dismantlement and light refurbishment along with re-erection via its Cairo, Egypt subsidiary.partnership.

When things looked like they were settling down with a potential new government, I had worked with the same people to provide modular hospitals along with rehab of the two existing hospitals in Benghazi and Tripoli. Interesting thing about the medicines requested, was the vast majority of the drugs were for STD's, ED, and various forms of mental illness primarily schizophrenia.

Post Qaddafi, Libya basically became a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which then splintered into a few hundred "Bloods and Crips" gangs.

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I guess it depends on if you are the one having to go actually fight the "war" part. Have you ever been to war? I highly doubt it or you would not make a statement like that.

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No, I tried to enlist, but my history of kidney stones supposedly meant that I could be incapacitated at a critical time, and along with the fact that I was borderline diabetic, my body was unfit for military service -- that's what the MEPS report said, anyway.

But the guys who I've talked to who did go enjoyed kicking Saddam out of power. They didn't like acting as police for years after that.

This is serious loss of prestige for Russia. It makes those it has supported in Africa wonder whether it actually has the cajones to support them or just empty promises.

It is a serious blow to Russia's ally, Iran and the shiapets

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It makes those it has supported in Africa wonder whether it actually has the cajones to support them or just empty promises.

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It's not about the cajones.

From a logistical standpoint, Russia absolutely needs its Syrian bases to support its African operations.

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If HTS does gain power in Syria, its not like the west is going to work with them.

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Of course the West will work with them. The West has every reason to work with them, as long as they don't start persecuting minorities. Which, honestly, I think is going to be the case.

HTS now has a history of several years of tolerance in the areas it controls. I actually think that Syria's minorities are much better off with HTS leading this revolution than they'd have been with the SNA doing it, because the SNA's whole premise is that they hate Kurds.

I think that religious and ethnic minorities will be second-class citizens in the new Syria, but I don't think that they will face serious persecution. HTS not only has too many reasons to pursue tolerance, but they are also setting precedents right now -- Christians in Aleppo are comfortable and not facing any problems, as are the Ismaelis.

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It's not about the cajones.

From a logistical standpoint, Russia absolutely needs its Syrian bases to support its African operations.

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That is my point no actual cajones, if no way to support their actions.