Events in Syria have been moving rapidly. Today the Syrian rebels marched into Latakia and Tartus on the coast. Tartus is the home of Russia’s Mediterranean fleet and reports indicate its ships, which include cruise missile frigates and submarines, have left the port.
There are also reports of pockets of Russian soldiers being cut off along the coast.
And, of course, there is the question of what happened to Bashar al-Assad himself. There are reports that he was in a plane that got the Prigozhin treatment, either by the rebels or by a Russian missile. One report cites Ukrainian intelligence claiming the crash was faked. Or maybe he had already left. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Maybe he’s with Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart.
Anyway, the collapse for Assad came in 1 Scaramucci, so now it’s Tear Down the Statues Day across Syria. This one is of Hafez al-Assad in Tartus.
One of the biggest lessons from Syria is that, just a month ago, almost no one could have predicted the Assad regime would fall today. The "realities on the ground" crowd would have denied such a possibility. A reminder of why people in Ukraine fight rather than surrender.
— Tatarigami (@tatarigami.bsky.social) December 7, 2024 at 9:31 PM
Assad collected luxury vehicles the way Imelda Marcos collected shoes. I especially like the Lamborghini Diablo.
Here is a good analysis of the implications for Russia of the loss of the Tartus naval base.
Russian bloggers are following the withdrawal.
Our bases in Syria have finally received an order to destroy heavy armored vehicles and all accompanying documentation. No one will evacuate anything. And it is impossible. The main thing is to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Barmaleys. By the way, there are also strongholds with personnel who quickly ended up in the Barmaleys' rear and what to do with them now is still unclear. Columns of the Barmaleys also broke into Latakia and calmly overcame those very insurmountable mountains that were supposed to protect our bases and port. The local population greets them as heroes. I hope a wise politician will guess to take all the ships out to sea, otherwise the Barmaleys and, consequently, the Turks may get the carriers of the Kalibr and Zircon missiles.
Over in Georgia, the protests continue. When you need a police cordon to guard your Christmas tree from the people, you are losing.
Another 27 Russian officers gone.
This dead officer is especially interesting because it seems he was killed in Vinnytsia, which is in western Ukraine far from the front lines. He may have ended up in Vinnytsia by way of Russian-occupied Transnistria, which borders Vinnytsia.
Another 1,460 Russians off the field.
Zelenskyy puts Ukraine’s death toll at 43k soldiers.
These will probably be used in moving supplies and evacuating wounded, but I can see them delivering bombs to Russian lines.
Meanwhile, Russia continues killing Ukrainian civilians.
Ukraine has adopted a new strategy in Toretsk.
In one key city, however, it’s the Ukrainians who are advancing. How they’re doing it speaks to the Ukrainians’ desperation as Russia’s wider war on their country grinds toward its fourth bloody year. To liberate the Russian-held quarters of Toretsk, an eastern city with a pre-war population of 35,000, Ukrainian troops are detonating entire high-rises in the hope of burying the Russian troops sheltering inside.
Under the cover of darkness apparently sometime this week, Ukrainian national guardsmen with the 1st Omega Detachment raced toward
a Russian-held high-rise on Vulytsya Street in central Toretsk. While the gunner atop their armored truck blasted away with his heavy machine gun, the guardsmen in the back piled out, tossed heavy explosive charges into a hole in the side of the building and then leaped back into the truck.
….
Amid the strikes, there were signs of close combat—evidence the Ukrainians were following up their bombardment with infantry assaults. After the assaults, the bombardment died down, indicating the Ukrainians had evicted local Russian forces.
….
Flattening a city to save it is, on its face, an absurd tactic. But the alternative for the Ukrainian brigades in this sector is surrendering what’s left of Toretsk to the Russians and falling back to the next nearest settlement. That would almost certainly bring the fighting—and likely total destruction—to that settlement, instead.
Bavovna!
“We got royally fucked.”
The obvious solution to being royally fucked is to go home.
Russian soldier complains about the quality of new troops being sent to the front, like the guy walking behind him who was born when the Beatles were big.
The news for much of this year has been bad for Ukraine, but this analysis is more upbeat.
I know a lot of people are currently obsessed with Russia’s advances in Ukraine, but I personally see these advances as largely a failure of the Russian military. They are dumping entire Divisions directly into combat and advancing a few km while sustaining absolutely catastrophic casualties. The families of the soldiers are reaching out begging for information about their lost sons and husbands. The way Russia is using their forces is unsustainable, and I guarantee you they are angry at their pace of advance.
I think the current rate of Russian advance is an actually really good sign for Ukraine, because it shows under dramatically increased stress the Ukrainians are losing ground at roughly the same rate as they were prior.
I know people are pointing to Ukraine having lost more ground in November than prior months, but personally I find this figure to be misleading because much of that area lost was the area between Ukraine’s first and second line of defense. It should be said that second line of defense was lost, and that is much more notable and important than the number of square meters.
But, also, a lot of that Russian advance occurred back when Ukraine was in a much more critically bad situation, where a lot of things were going very badly. Whereas over the past few weeks it appears to me that Ukraine is much more in control.
And, frankly, I think this increase in control is largely stemming from massive increases in aid. Vast majority of which is from the US, but also from Europe.
Here’s some new aid to Ukraine that Trump is unlikely to mess around with.
One side effect of digging trenches across Ukraine is finding artifacts.
Thanks for bringing supplies.
