Russia is evacuating its naval forces from its base in the Syrian city of Tartus. This may indicate that Moscow does not plan to send significant reinforcements to support the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad soon, reports the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
An OSINT analysis by MT Anderson of satellite images from November 30 and December 1 confirmed that the Russian base in Tartus hosted the frigates Admiral Golovko and Admiral Grigorovich, the submarine Novorossiysk, and the oil tankers Elnya and Vyazma.
However, satellite images from December 3 showed that Russia had withdrawn three frigates, the submarine, and two unnamed auxiliary vessels (likely Elnya and Vyazma) – effectively removing all the vessels stationed at Tartus.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believes that Russia cannot relocate these ships to its ports in the Black Sea, as Türkiye adheres to the Montreux Convention, which prohibits Russian military vessels from passing through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. Given this, the Institute suggests that Moscow is likely to relocate the ships to its bases in the northwest of Russia and the Kaliningrad region.
On December 3, Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate reported that the Russian military command has likely deployed an unspecified number of forces from its African Corps to Syria. This is an organization established by Russia’s Ministry of Defense to replace the operations of the Wagner Group in Africa after its financier, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in August 2023.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted that they could not independently verify the reports about the deployment of elements of the African Corps to Syria. However, if the reports are accurate, it suggests that the Russian military command is avoiding the redeployment of regular Armed Forces from the priority theater of operations in Ukraine to Syria.
“The Russian evacuation of Tartus and the reported deployment of Africa Corps forces to Syria suggest that Russia is worried that Syrian opposition forces may advance southward to Hama (roughly 80 kilometers northeast of Tartus) and threaten the Tartus base but that the Russian military command will not deploy significant reinforcements to Syria in the near term to prevent such advances,” the ISW report states.
Source: RBC Ukraine