RI... Almost a year ago (30.09.15) Russia has started a military operation in Syria. Despite the external support Bashar al-Assad army did not manage to achieve any significant success: 60-70% of the country is still controlled by the militants, population and even the army have to pay bribes to special forces and so on. It is impossible to win this war without a serious political decision.
Currently the majority of Russian troops went back home. Basically there is just one aviation group on Khmeimim. There is information that Kremlin decided to lower the cost of the whole operation: they try to save bombs and the aviation fuel. There are rumors that Russia is buying some bombs in Belarus as well where there is still plenty of bombs left after the USSR collapse.
Speaking about the amount of Russian involvement in Syria, currently there is around 4500 Russians there. The amount of people who voted (18.09.16) in the military base is 4378. It mostly includes military personnel, as well as non-military one including cooking personnel, repair personnel and so on. 4 times less of Russians in Syria voted during the previous elections in 2011. Source
The first 6 months of the campaign was a relative success. Russian army performed effective strikes and Syrian army was able to advance well and liberate some of the Syrian areas. However during the second 6 months no significant advance occurs as well as Syrian army had to pull back in some areas.
Today around 60-70% (it is difficult to tell the exact numbers) of Syrian territory is occupied by militants and the opposition. Almost the whole East of Syria, significant parts of Aleppo, whole Idlib, significant parts of Homs, the territory around Deir ez-Zor, Eastern Ghouta in the South of Damask, Zabadani close to the border with Lebanon and other places are controlled by them.
Aleppo terrorists constantly get supplies from Turkey, it includes militants, arms, military supplies and vehicles. In Idlib the Syrian-Turkish border is completely opened.
Further Syrian army success does not look good. The quality of army management is the most important question today.
Since 2004 Syrian army fired a lot of officers and generals who got their education in USSR and Russia.
There are almost no Russian-speaking officers in Syrian army today. Officers who got their education in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the West were preferred. They were the main core of Syrian army.
A lot of Syrian generals and officers left Syrian army and joined the opposition as a result. They were not the worst part of Syrian army however. Today Syrian army suffers from corruption, intrigues, informal agreements, exchanges of services, connections and so on. Good and brave officers have no chance to get a promotion without connections.
All Russian military advisers left Syria. There are no Russian advisers in Syrian central army apparatus, nor anywhere in the army or staff. This is the main reason why there is no basic communication between Russian and Syrian military personnel. It causes non-compliance in actions, absence of cooperation and mutual mistrust. Both Russia and Syria suspect each other in information leaks and even betrayal.
There must be a coalition army for a much effective military actions. A united staff must be formed, and a united coalition commander with must be assigned, who will be personally responsible for the campaign.
It it desirable that such commander's rank is a deputy defense minister of Russia at least. He should not be in Khmeimim with his staff, but in Damask. He must be appointed there not for 3 months or so, but until the victory.
In this case only it is possible to talk about some adequate forces administration. Yet it is not implemented and it is unknown whether it will ever be.
In fact, Russia has already some good experience in creating a coalition army during the trainings. Since 2005 Russia is participating in joint "Peaceful mission" training within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The training deals with joint coalition forming and administration with different countries being involved. This experience could be used in Syria.
The coalition commander should have a strong reserve forces (in fact currently Syria has no reserve forces).
The best option for such reserve would be 10 thousand Ramzan Kadyrov soldiers that could form a brigade. Just the usage of such brigade would drastically change the situation on favor of Syrian army.
If Syria and Russia are allies, they should discuss together all the major changes in Syrian staff. Assad supporters could become angry since it might look like the Syrian sovereignty collapse, yet they are free to analyze how soon Syrian army will lose the war without such close cooperation.
Syrian army has no centralized supplies. Everything is decided by the army commanders. They get the money and decide what supplies they are going to buy. These commanders are the richest people in Syrian army. Central staff has no influence over their decisions regarding supplies. This is the reason why Assad army is so poorly supplied. Syrian young people leave the country from the conscription. There is a minimum help for the family members of dead or wounded solders. Such families are extremely poor.
Soldiers and officers are not motivated to fight.
The military college was left by Syrian army when just a few militants (8-11 people) entered it during the Aleppo battle. They left a lot of supplies and food there. Russian aviation had to destroy the object later.
This is the most common picture: RuAF completes the strikes yet the Assad soldiers do not advance. They advance for around 60 meters and then go back. They rarely aim when shoot.
Syrian army was advancing from Palmyra to Deir ez-Zor for 1.5 months, it was just 7 kilometers towards their destination. Yet they left it all in just one day. One of the high ranked staff officials came, spoke to his local army, and then they run away (this part looks strange even in Russian).
Sometimes just one bearded militant could scare Syrian army a lot and they would run away.
Assad artillery is also very bad. They could hit the target directly, or half-directly. They don't know how to hit a target from a closed position (indirectly).
Syrian army has no general strategic line. They command tactically on separate directions.
This is the style of Ali Aslan, who was the chief of staff of the Syrian Army, and now he is the closest Bashar al-Assad military adviser.
During the 6-day war in 1967 he was a platoon commander, and it looks like he is still on the same level. He does not know what a strategy is, nor everyone who passed through his training knows anything about it. There is no success everywhere Ali Aslan and his commanders are present.
Syrian army has no reserves. At the same time they are forming volunteer brigades. They could have formed a powerful reserve and concentrate it in the right place in the right time. Yet these volunteers are spread across the country and change nothing in this war.
There are shootings every night in the capital of Syria. They occur almost exactly at the same time each day, at around 22.00 (11 AM). Militants are in the suburbs of Damask yet no one is doing anything about them.
It looks like this tension in the capital of Syria is good for both sides.
Assad's traveling in Damask and in Syria is limited for his safety. Only the most trusted people could personally meet Assad.
A good question comes into the mind: does Assad actually know what is happening in his country? Does he have independent sources of information that allow for a full understanding of the situation in his country? By the way, Syrian leaders deny the fact that they have a civil war. They think it is an internal military conflict with the elements of external intervention. Despite these full scale military actions there is still no martial law introduced.
A huge amount if intelligence forces (mukhbart) make the situation even worse. There are four kinds of it: national, military, air and political. There is also the National bureau of security.
The corruption in Syrian intelligence forces is awful. They force the whole population and army to pay an enormous amounts of bribes.
You have to pay when traveling through Syria at each checkpoint. Even a truck loaded with food could only cross the checkpoint for money. A similar situation is happening with refugees. Syrian intelligence forces could take a random person from the crowd and take all the money. The person then is detained. In order to free such person you would have to pay around 200.000 liras per person. This is a huge amount of money by Syrian standards.
It is impossible to apply European approach in multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Syria. You have to consider the local way of thinking. For example Syria has a lot of Christians, there is around 2 million of them. However they are not willing to fight for Assad. They used to be a social outcast in Syria, heavily underrepresented at all government levels. Hence they are not willing to fight for Assad since they do not know what to expect from him in the future. They could be used to form a few brigades 10.000 people each, and they could be brave warriors too.
No one is cooperating with Syrian Turkmen. They are good warriors as well, yet they fight for the opposition mostly. They could have fought for Assad if they knew what they are fighting for exactly. Even the ones who are fighting for the opposition could have switched to the pro-government forces. Yet no one is working with them. Syrian intelligence forces also play a bad role here, they just steal these people and you never see them again.
The relatives would only get a note afterwards, saying that "your son died in prison". The government is making a lot of enemies for themselves.
Current situation in Syria is a dead end. There is no military solution for the situation. While Americans and the opposition are working on the new constitution, Assad is doing nothing.
Originally appeared at Gazeta.ru - Russian news site
Poster Comment:
Contrapunctus • This piece gave me abad taste in my mouth so I did a little research on the author ''Khodarenok''. It appears he had a military career which blossomed mostly during the ''Yeltsin'' years and is heavily obviously associated with Western NGO type work . This might tell something about where he is coming from here. He was military writer for Nezavisimaya Gazeta which was first published on 21 December 1990. The paper was temporarily closed for four months in 1995 and then it became part of the "Berezovsky Media Group". RIGHT!! He's also involved with MIC media, another western funded outfit aimed at influencing the ''millennials''.
On the surface this reads like an objective dispassionate and good technical assessor. But this is clever propaganda laced with lies. His comment on the Christians is rubbish!. The Christians very much trust Assad and have always been respected in Syrian society. The ''moderate opposition'' have been beheading and crucifying them eagerly in recent times however. So would I trust Khodarenok's damning assessment of the Syrian army and his comments about endemic corruption. Frankly..NO! +40
Grimaldy/ Edward Mercer • His article was published in Gazeta.ru, a Russian online news site translated to English. It is not clear to me but the suggestion is that Gazeta.ru is a branch of Novaya Gazeta a Russian news organization that has been around since the 1920s. If you have some information Gazeta.ru is foreign owned I would like to hear it..
Actually I read the Colonel as repeating the words of former Gen. Wm Westmoreland: More troops, more money, more officers. He may well be picking up money from western think tanks and he is certainly not the only one, but the tenor of his writing is why did we get into this mess unless we were going all out?
Viking • This article is very flimsy to say the least. It makes too many assumption. The key assumption is about the civil war, and the article never goes deep into the real terrorist problem faced by Syria. The Terrorist who are funded and armed and trained by Saudi, Israel Jordan, Qatar and the Great USA. This is an anti Assad propaganda. Nothing else.
Aeck Suam • All very true, Assad was trying to change a lot of things and he was turning things around before all this happened. The Russians are training small regiments that are effective. Syria has special forces like tigers, leapords etc but they are just battle hardened front line troops used to break defensive lines but the regular SAA then can not hold it. So these 20,000 special forces are always on the move from front to front. Just 4000 hezbola troops made a huge difference when 100,000 SAA were losing. That military school has 1500 troops inside it yet a few suicide VBIEDS and they were emptied in a few days, even though those inside knew the attack was coming for a week through open territory. 100 strong determined squad could have held the entire complex. You can see all the videos where the SAA are just firing randomly. Then they run out of bullets and get caught by IS and get beheaded. It boggles the mind. When you know you only have so many bullets to just waste it firing randomly and then get beheaded. The main problem I see is the most effective of the SAA has a short lifespan because the rest run away. So the bravest die first leaving the useless around. Why does 2000 iraqi iranian afghan or pakistani militia so much more effective than the SAA? Not like they get any better training and their mortality rates are very high. But they dont run away from a position. The SAA at kuwaris airbase and deir zzor are so effective not because they are any better soldiers, only that they have nowhere to run to and they seen what happens when they run and get captured. This would have been like iraqi war 1 if IS and AQ were smart and just took prisoners and treated them well. Look how effective the iraqi's are now when they found motivated soldiers who are out to defend themselves and not just in it to make a buck. so the same people can be effective if given the proper guidance and leadership, Hezbollah comes from less than 100km away.. Most would think they are the cream of the crop of militias worldwide and on par with any special forces in the world. Also many of the AQ are syrians and IS are Iraqi's..
Aeck Suam • I should mention that the author of this article was a discharged Russian soldier who could not advance to the rank of general. They throw you out if you cant advance in the Putin system. Assad should take a lesson from Putin and throw out most of his generals. At least some have a gal to commit suicide like the general in charge of that military academy that got over run when he was the first one to run off. Someone must have had a talk with him later and told him in no uncertain terms what would happen to his ilk if he did not lead the charge to take back the complex and was one of the first ones to get chopped.
But never the less the author just has a beef with Putinism, does not mean he is not correct in his assessment of the over all situation.
gordonehil • The main reasons for the success of the terrorists in Syria are 1) US command (Gen. Paul Vallely), control and intelligence and 2) an abundant supply of arms, equipment and new recruits from the exterior. Without external help, the terrorists would have been beaten long ago. The draconian punishment of the civilian population under their control is a result of the low level of civilian support. The American use of terrorist armies permits unrestricted atrocities, as does the use of false flag attacks like 9/11 in the metropolis. Khodarenok gives interesting information but is very one-sided. He may well be part of the Atlanticist 'fifth column'.
richardstevenhack • 9 hours ago Given we've seen Russian troops on the Castelo Road, this author appears ignorant of how many Russian troops remain in Syria. Presumably this includes actual advisers.
In any event, the issue is whether Russia is prepared to do what it takes to win in Syria. The presence of more warplanes and the sending of the heavy cruiser would indicate that Russia is upping its performance, which is a welcome sign.
In my view, both Russia and Iran need to send another 10,000 (or more) troops each with full logistical and air support, take Aleppo, block the Turkish advance, and then move on Raqaa. If the US complains, turn on the S-300, S-400 and S-500, BUK and Pantsir systems and call the US bluff.
If Russia loses Syria, Lebanon will fall, and then the decades-long war with Iran will begin. Israel and the US will continue to dominate the Middle East for decades. This must be prevented at any cost short of WWIII.