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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

In a single line expressed through a reporter, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov has explained the defeat of Syria as a tactical withdrawal in preparation for the “military conflict with NATO, and in the next 10 years. So, Russia right now needs solutions that will ensure at least a long-term balance in the global confrontation.”  

This line appeared in the Kremlin-funded security analysis platform Vzglyad on January 3; there was no mention of Syria.  In case the significance was missed, Vzglyad added the editorial line in italics: “In a long confrontation with the West, it is important to skillfully combine the economy and military. Judging by the first results of the activities of the economist Belousov as Minister of Defense, this is exactly what we see.”

A political source in Moscow concurs. “Russia has to fight all of NATO head-on within the next ten years. So if a deal can be made now to earn some time to rearm, then that’s a strategic choice that is going to have to be made.”

Not all military sources in Moscow agree. Some believe that during the process in October and November when President Vladimir Putin listened to General Staff and Foreign Ministry arguments for opposing the Turkish plan to break out of Idlib and capture Damascus, the Kremlin underestimated the message that Russia’s acquiescence would deliver to the US and the NATO allies. “Anyone now thinking Russia can be counted on as ally”, comments one, “is mistaken.”

These sources believe that now the pressure on Putin to make fresh concessions in the Ukraine will intensify. “The US and NATO used the time we conceded in Minsk  to prepare the war we weren’t as prepared to fight as they were in February 2022. Delay was our mistake. They want time now to rearm the Kiev regime for the next round. We should be aiming for capitulation in Kiev and no future for the enemy. For us, that’s the strategy.”.”

In support of the Kremlin refusal to defend Syria and the government of Bashar al-Assad, the Kremlin’s supporters among the Anglo-American podcasters have become experts on Arab, Syrian,  and Iranian politics;  one of them has even moved to Beirut.  

An independent timeline of what exactly happened produced by the French analyst Thierry Meyssan omits analysis of Russian actions, but he does confirm that President Assad flew to Moscow on November 29.  This was a secret kept by the Kremlin and the Russian press. “On November 30, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad went to Russia. Not to attend the exam that his son Hafez was taking at Moscow University where he is continuing his studies, but to call for help. The Russian forces in Syria could only bomb the jihadists’ convoys because they are only airborne. They therefore tried to block the road to HTS [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] and Turkey. They could not intervene on the ground against them. Aleppo was well and truly lost.”  

There is an eyewitness — this is Kamel Saqr who has given his detailed account of what happened, in what sequence and with what meaning. Saqr is exceptional because he was present as a senior member of Assad’s staff at the meeting Assad held in secret with Putin in Moscow on November 29; he listened to Putin’s telephone call with General Valery Gerasimov during the meeting; and he continued negotiating with Putin’s subordinates through the Friday evening and Saturday morning, November 29-30, before Assad and his staff flew from Moscow at 4 pm that day.

Nothing comparable to this account has appeared in public from any other source to speak credibly. Saqr’s interpretation of what he calls “the state of disavowal” is disputable; the facts, less so.  Saqr says that Assad told him directly that when he was at his Moscow residence in the Four Seasons Hotel, Putin had sent him the message that he wanted the visit kept secret, canceling Saqr’s negotiations with the Kremlin press office on a joint communiqué for public release.

Also, Putin’s message to Assad, according to Saqr, was that “the [Russian] military was not in a position to wage war, neither psychologically nor logistically.” In retrospect, Saqr interprets Putin as having decided before the fall of Aleppo to the Turkish-led forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on December 2 not to prevent their southward advance to Damascus, and also to have decided not to accept Iranian reinforcements through the Khmeimim airbase. From Saqr’s record of the last meetings in Damascus between Assad and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi on December 5-6, he admits he doesn’t know how coordinated the Russian and Iranian decision-making had been, and for how long. During that week, Saqr reports that Assad called Putin on the Tuesday (December 3), Wednesday (December 4) and Thursday (December 5), and on each occasion Putin reportedly refused to answer. Assad then contacted the French, according to Saqr, and asked them to inform Putin that Assad was trying to make contact. The French reply after several hours was that Putin was visiting Belarus “and so he cannot talk to you.”

This was false. The Kremlin record shows Putin was in Moscow on all the three days.  

On the evening of Tuesday, December 3, after Saqr claims Assad’s call had been rejected, Putin spoke by telephone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Erdogan had initiated the call. In their discussion, according to the Kremlin release, Putin asked the Turkish president to “stop radical groups’ terrorist aggression against the Syrian state and provide comprehensive assistance to the legitimate authorities’ efforts to restore stability and constitutional order across the country, including using Ankara’s capabilities in the region.” Erdogan reportedly agreed on “strengthening cooperation both bilaterally and within the framework of the Astana process. The key importance of further close coordination between Russia, Turkiye and Iran to normalise the situation in Syria”.  

Erdogan was misleading. According to Saqr’s record of what Assad had been told by the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed al-Sudani, Erdogan had declared the time for mediation was over. 

Left to right: Bashar al-Assad; Mohammed al-Sudani; Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Putin remained in Moscow to meet with the Security Council on December 5 when the communiqué does not acknowledge that the situation in Syria was discussed.   Putin then flew to Minsk on the afternoon of Friday, December 6, and continued meetings there the next day. The Kremlin record of his movements and meetings is then silent until Monday, December 9, when Putin had returned to Moscow. So had Assad.   

Saqr adds that the Russian military attaché in Damascus, Rear Admiral Oleg Kornienko, (right) met Assad at his residence “in the last hours of his rule”, December 7-8.  They appear to have discussed the arrangements for Assad’s evacuation from Khmeimim and the terms of his asylum in Russia.

Saqr’s publication is highly significant politically because his interpretation of Russian actions, and of Putin’s decision-making in particular, was broadcast on January 7 by the Saudi Arabian state-owned media platform, Al Arabiya.  

Watch Saqr’s full 90-minute interview in Arabic: https://www.youtube.com/

For understanding how Saqr’s testimony is being interpreted in the Middle East, here is the report of the broadcast by the Middle East Eye (MEE). Based in London since 2014, MEE describes itself as “an independently funded digital news organisation covering stories from the Middle East and North Africa, as well as related content from beyond the region.”    The evidence of its UK Companies House listing  and other media investigations and Arab state sanctions indicate its funding is probably based in Qatar.  Russia has not been a significant focus of MEE’s recent coverage.

With the  addition of the map of the air route between Iran and Khmeimim for illustration, this republication is unedited.  

Syria’s former media chief and top aide to Bashar al-Assad said that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have “tricked” the ousted Syrian president in his final days as leader.

Speaking to Mazeej Studios, a podcast produced by Saudi channel Al Arabiya, Kamel Saqr said that Assad was in Moscow in late November, just over a week before Syrian rebels captured Damascus. According to him, the rebels had already captured much of Aleppo by the time Assad met Putin on Friday 29 November.

There, Saqr said, Assad asked for Putin’s support in helping Iran transport equipment and support to strengthen his government’s positions against the opposition. “Bashar al-Assad’s request to Putin was for him to personally handle the secure the aerial transportation necessary to deliver military aid to support or stop the advance of the Syrian opposition,” Saqr said.

The request came as Iran reduced its forces and militias’ presence in Syria, and Hezbollah suffered heavy blows in its battles against Israel in Lebanon. Saqr believes neither Russia nor Iran wanted to heavily intervene in this battle, but Assad told him [Saqr] that Putin had instructed his chief of staff [General Valery Gerasimov] to get ready to support any transport needed for Iran at Russia’s Khmeimim base in Latakia.

“But what happened was that the Iranians told Bashar al-Assad, ‘we did not receive any signals to proceed with moving Iranian aircraft to the Khmeimim base [or to] fly through Iraqi airspace to land at the base,’ Saqr told Mazeej.“The question was relayed to Moscow, but no answer came.” When asked whether this was a “trick by Putin”, Saqr said there was “no other explanation”.

Regardless, Saqr said the Iranians told Assad they had sent a plane through Iraq, but were warned by the US that the aircraft would be shot down if it continued…Saqr says Putin did not pick up any of Assad’s calls between the Tuesday and Thursday [December 3-5] before his fall and that, despite having planned a 400-word speech addressing the situation, the former Syrian president decided against speaking to the public.

As rebel forces were nearing Damascus, Assad spoke to his media office for the last time on Saturday 7 December about a military meeting at the Khmeimim base between him and the Russians. Saqr says he believes Assad left “from Damascus airport via a private plane, taking the southern bypass road and then the airport road to reach the airport”.

My information suggests that he stayed at the base for several hours until the plane was secured, prepared, and its takeoff and flight to Moscow were ensured,” he added.

What were the Iranians thinking and doing in parallel?

An audio recording, purportedly of a speech at a Teheran mosque on December 31, by Brigadier General Behrouz Esbati of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), surfaced in the Iranian media a week later.  Excerpts of the speech but not a full authenticated recording or transcript have been amplified in interpretation by the New York Times and the Israeli press, and in anti-Russian commentaries from Kiev to Washington.

Abdi Media is an Iranian publication originating in Geneva. It reported General esbatii’s speech on January 6. Source: https://abdimedia.net/

In the brief excerpt reported by Abdi Media, Esbati criticized Russian policy in Syria. “Russia was one of the factors that led to the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. Russia turned off all radar systems so that Israel could hit the intelligence headquarters of Shahid Sadiq. The Russians were bombing the deserts instead of the headquarters of Tahrir al-Sham [HTS].”

Longer excerpts of the IRGC general’s speech have been reported by the New York Times.   In that newspaper report, “tensions surrounding these competing views on Syria preoccupied officials enough that they embarked on a campaign of damage control with the public last week. Senior military commanders and pundits close to the government gave speeches and held question-and-answer sessions with audiences in mosques and community centers in several cities…[Esbati] is a top commander of Iran’s Armed Forces, the umbrella that includes the military and the Revolutionary Guards Corps, with a record of prominent roles including commander in chief of the Armed Forces’ cyber division. In Syria, he supervised Iran’s military operations and coordinated closely with Syrian ministers and defense officials and with Russian generals — outranking even the commander in chief of the Quds Forces, Gen. Ismail Ghaani, who oversees the network of regional militias backed by Iran.”

The following is a verbatim excerpt from the Times report.  

General Esbati’s speech, on Dec. 31 at the Valiasr mosque in central Teheran, addressed rank and file of the military and constituents of the mosque, according to a public notice of the event, titled, ‘Answering questions about Syria’s collapse.’ The session started with General Esbati telling the crowd he left Syria on the last military plane to Teheran the night before Damascus fell to rebels. It ended with him answering questions from audience members. He offered his most sobering assessment on Iran’s military capability in fighting Israel and the United States.

 An audio recording of the speech, given last week by Brig. Gen. Behrouz Esbati at a mosque in Teheran, surfaced publicly on Monday in Iranian media, and was a stark contrast to the remarks of Iran’s president, foreign minister and other top leaders. They have for weeks downplayed the magnitude of Iran’s strategic loss in Syria last month, when rebels swept Mr. al-Assad out of power, and said Iran would respect any political outcome decided by Syria’s people…General Esbati revealed that Iran’s relations with Mr. al-Assad had been strained for months leading to his ouster, saying that the Syrian leader had denied multiple requests for Iranian-backed militias to open a front against Israel from Syria, in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023.

Iran had presented Mr. al-Assad with comprehensive military plans on how it could use Iran’s military resources in Syria to attack Israel, he said.

The general also accused Russia, considered a top ally, of misleading Iran by telling it that Russian jets were bombing Syrian rebels when they were actually dropping bombs on open fields. He also said that in the past year, as Israel struck Iranian targets in Syria, Russia had “turned off radars,” in effect facilitating these attacks…General Esbati said the fall of the Assad regime was inevitable given the rampant corruption, political oppression and economic hardship that people faced, from lack of power to fuel to livable incomes. He said Mr. al-Assad had ignored the warnings to reform….Iran’s policy had not yet been finalized but that a consensus had emerged in meetings he had attended where strategy was debated.

For the time being, the Moscow analysts with military and intelligence sources who will not have missed the testimonies of Saqr and Esbati, are not acknowledging them. Instead, Vzglyad has published a disclaimer of the Russian Army’s readiness under former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the time and priority tasks required by his replacement, Andrei Belousov.  The following text is a verbatim translation into English; illustrations and captions have been added to assist the English reader understand the Russian references.   

Source: https://vz.ru/society/2025/1/3/1306414.html 

January 3, 2025
How Belousov is changing the Russian military machine
By Alexei Anpilogov                   

One of the key military-political events of 2024 was the changes in the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry. The Ministry was headed by First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov. Why did the civilian, an economist, become the most appropriate candidate as head of the military administration, and what results has he already achieved?

The appointment of Andrei Belousov to the post of Minister of Defense instead of Sergei Shoigu was unexpected, but to some extent predetermined by the situation in the armed forces by the beginning of last year. Despite the successful resistance to the large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023, at that time the Russian army with an effort “turned the wheel of war”, only having achieved success in the difficult and vicious offensive operation around Avdeyevka.

The military operations of the 2024 sample were sharply different from those conditions in which Russia began the special military operation. First of all, for obvious reasons financial spending on the army has increased significantly. Now they account for 6.3% of GDP —  that’s  2.5% more than before —  which has required special attention to the control of costs and their rational calculus.

“The nomination of Belousov for this post is largely due to the fact that the entire defence bloc in the modern realities needs competent economic leadership. Because, as we can see, the format of hostilities is changing and requires, first of all, a sustainable materiel supply on the logistics support base,” said Peter Kolchin, a political analyst at the Center for Expert Support of Political Processes.  In addition, the picture on the battlefield has changed;  new types of weapons based on new technologies of communication and information-processing have appeared. Among them, the unmanned vehicles have been especially remarkable – in effect they have upturned the  tactics and strategy of combat operations.

“Obviously, digitalization in the military administration is now necessary,” was the initial expectation of the new Defense Ministry command, according to Yevgeny Minchenko, president of the communication holding Minchenko Consulting. “Questions related to drones, electronic warfare (EW) systems, and microelectronics will play a key role,” military expert Boris Rozhin also confirms the same idea. But the idea of including the creation of [a department for] unmanned systems comes from Belousov who supervised it in his previous post as the first deputy prime minister of the Russian government.

As a result, as shown in 2024, Belousov’s actions focused on several critical areas in the work of the Ministry of Defense – both already indicated and in a number of others. We list only the most important and obvious.

1. Rationalization of military expenditures. The experience of managing civil economic systems has helped to more effectively direct the funds of the military budget to the most necessary directions. “Judging by the results on the battlefield, the growing equipment of our troops and seizure of the strategic initiative at the front, the Ministry of Defense has not only improved the quality of military implementation, but also established control over the spending of state funds.  Command-and-control has become stricter”, says military expert Vasily Dandykin.

2. Improving the quality and speed of administration by getting rid of unnecessary management units. The head of the Ministry of Defense himself at the final board of the department in mid-December spoke about the first results of projects to optimize administrative processes in a number of structures of the ministry – “the number of excessive procedures can be reduced by 5-10 times, and the time – five or more times.” The Defense Department plans to create an integrated information system.  At the same time, at the board of the Ministry of Defense, President Vladimir Putin ordered the creation of a single information circuit in the forces, combining reconnaissance and attack equipment at different levels of management.

Source: http://kremlin.ru
According to Putin, there is to be a “necessary increase in the production of robotic systems and unmanned systems of different classes and types. At the beginning of the special operation we had problems in this area: some samples were expensive and difficult to operate. Today, over a few thousand days drones of various purposes have come to the troops. [It is] necessary to continue increase their combat and operational characteristics. No less important to train operators of such complexes, to prepare them according to the programs developed based on the experience of real fighting.”

3. Emphasis on inventions, innovations, new technical solutions. Exactly what did President Vladimir Putin draw attention to when appointing the new head of the ministry? The new defense minister has dramatically accelerated changes related to the introduction of new military systems, such as drones, unmanned boats, artillery systems and high-precision ammunition. “Today, a huge number of innovative technical developments are being carried out directly in the troops, showing high results…All this allows to save thousands of lives of our military. In this regard, it is necessary to carry out a complete inventory of such military developments. On a systematic basis, conduct their tests in operation. And to organize serial production of the best samples,” Belousov has said.

4. Support for the People’s Military-Industrial Complex [народного ВПК].   Soldiers, in cooperation with civilian volunteers, are actively introducing many new technical solutions on the battlefield. Military innovators and volunteers supplying components and finished products that have not been put into service or supply are people without whom current hostilities would hardly have been possible. The Ministry of Defense turned its face to our new Kulibins (by then, one of the main suppliers of products of the “people’s military-industrial complex” to the troops was the “Kulibin club” of the “People’s Front”). There, in these basement workshops, have been produced shock drones and the so-called closers [доводчики] – homing modules that bring to the target a drone that has flown into the interference zone of the enemy’s electronic warfare system. Evacuation trolleys for the wounded, robotic transporters, electronic intelligence and jamming systems, carried by one or two soldiers, have also appeared there.  

5. First-class attention to the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicles]. It was this weapon of armed struggle that has changed the face of warfare in the 21st century. Therefore, at the end of the year, Andrei Belousov announced  the creation of a new kind of military force — troops of unmanned systems (ВБС, VBS). In simple terms, these are units whose principal means of armed combat are drones – both FPV[first-person view]  drones and heavy copters.

Experts have repeatedly raised the issue that Russia needs its own centralized structure in the forces which would allow the development of strike formations, the training system, and tactical models for operations including standards for the use of attack drones in the combat manuals of the Ground and Airborne Forces. Today, among domestic specialists, the opinion has been formed that unmanned systems are a so-called comprehensive technology, which should permeate all types of armed forces and types of troops. This means that the Russian VBS can be the same as the communication forces — to engage in the introduction of combat and auxiliary robotic complexes in all structures of the army, navy and air force. Judging by the fact that Belousov referred to the development of unmanned systems for “air, ground and sea-based” forces during the Special Military Operation,   so this is how the Russian unmanned system forces will be organized.

It should be understood that Belousov’s reforms are not only for the sake of winning the special military operation. The defense minister openly says that the country is preparing for a possible military conflict with NATO, and in the next 10 years. So, Russia right now needs solutions that will ensure at least a long-term balance in the global confrontation – even as the collective West has many more resources, including the purely military ones.

In a long confrontation with the West, it is important to skillfully combine the economy and the military. Judging by the first results of the activities of the economist Belousov as Minister of Defense, this is exactly what we see.

The criteria and principles of military spending are changing. The principle “you can make mistakes but you can’t lie”, proclaimed by Belousov when parliament was considering his candidacy as minister, is being implemented. The military-industrial complex, including the “people’s military-industrial complex”, is becoming one of the main points of economic growth in Russia, a place of concentration of the best minds, engineers and inventors.

Of course, Belousov’s “reforms” are implemented together with the head of the ministry and his team – the composition of the deputy defense ministers, too, has been updated. And if the military-operational leadership in the person of the first deputy, the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has remained the same, then there are  the new appointments of the head of the rear – Colonel-General Andrei Bulyga, state secretary and deputy minister responsible for  personnel and the head of the Defenders of the Fatherland fund; and Anna Tsivileva, deputy minister responsible for the construction and property of the ministry. By themselves, these appointments make clear which areas of the activities of the Ministry of Defense have been strengthened over the past year.

Left, Lieutenant-General Andrei Bulyga; right, Anna Tsivileva,  president of the Russian coal mining Kolmar Group and married to Sergei Tsivilev, governor of the Kemerovo region until May 2024 and since then federal energy minister. Tsivilev transferred his shareholding control of Kolmar to his wife, whose maiden name is Putina; she is a first cousin of the President.   

There is still a lot to be done. And on how effectively the Belousov team will work in the Ministry of Defense, how true the information which will be reported to him, and on that basis how correctly the conclusions will be drawn, a lot depends on the outcome of the SVO before we can say whether Russia can withstand the military conflicts of the future. 

A Moscow source comments on the contrast between these Syrian, Iranian and Russian versions of the present moment. “It has been an achievement of Putin’s that he had developed such positive relations with both the Iranians and the Arabs, the Saudis most important of all. The strategic alliance papers with Iran have still to be signed. We’ll see what happens when [Iranian President Masoud] Pezeshkian comes to Moscow on January 17.  It’s necessary for us to understand that whatever we say of our strategic objectives, this is how Putin’s conduct is being interpreted by our sometime friends.”



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