Russia is withdrawing its naval ships from the port in the city of Tartus in western Syria. The evacuation is taking place amid a rapid offensive by opposition groups in the north-west of the country.
This was reported by the Naval News portal with reference to a satellite image of the naval base in Tartus.
As of the end of November, five russian ships and one submarine were based in Tartus. Among them were two frigates of the project 22350 type "Admiral Gorshkov", one frigate of the project 11356Р "Burevestnik", two auxiliary vessels and a submarine of the project 636.3.
The first of them to leave Tartus was the auxiliary vessel "Elnya". This happened on the morning of December 2. After some time, information appeared that the russians had withdrawn all the ships.
It is noted that this unexpected step occurred a few days after a sharp change in the situation in northwestern Syria, where opposition groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched an offensive against government forces.
If the withdrawal of russian ships from Tartus is indeed connected with the offensive by HTS and other groups, then this is the first visible sign that russia is withdrawing valuable assets from the country.
On the eve, the OSINT analyst MT Anderson (@MT_Anderson) published a satellite image of the base in Tartus. It shows that the russian ships are missing from the berths, where they were seen on November 30.
The empty base of the russian fleet in Tartus. Photo: x.com/MT_Anderson
The Telegram channel "Byt Ili" noted that it will be difficult for the russian ships to find a new shelter. They cannot return to the occupied Crimea or other Black Sea ports of the russian federation, since Turkey will not let them through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits.
The author of the channel believes that going to the Baltic Sea is too far, and therefore russia may try to direct them to the ports of Algeria or Libya.
Opposition offensive in Syria. What is known
On November 27, Syrian opposition groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a large-scale offensive in northwestern Syria.
In just a few days, they managed to capture several dozen settlements, including Aleppo, one of the largest cities in the country.
Map of the fighting. Tartus is marked with a red circle. Photo: wikimedia.org
The opposition groups also managed to take control of a number of military facilities of the Syrian government forces, where they seized weapons and equipment.
Recall, on December 2, it became known that russian diplomats and military personnel were being evacuated from Damascus amid the opposition offensive.
We also wrote that Iran had sent about three hundred fighters from allied Iraqi groups to Syria to help government troops repel the opposition offensive.
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