Syria in 2017 (January-April)

[Azor]

Azor...seems we agreed across the board for a change...hope your slide into the New Year was great.

And you as wel!

Here is the kicker...Russia has a standard battle tactic whether in eastern Ukraine or Syria...get the other side to talk and talk and talk and then get them into a ceasefire which usually they tend to try to hold to in order then to not be accused by Russia and often the US of violating the so called ceasefire...

I would say that the Russian ceasefires, as evident in Ukraine and now Syria, are seen by the Russians as a form of conditional surrender. Russia is amenable to these ceasefires only when its adversary is losing, and offers them when it is close to winding down its participation in the conflict, having achieved most of its objectives.

None of the ceasefire talks in question convinced an adversary to delay or abort what would have been a successful offensive; they are not ruses of war. Rather, these ceasefires mark the beginning of Russia consolidating its gains.

We see that right now in eastern Ukraine where Russia claimed a Christmas ceasefire BUT the attacks have been massive and often and the UAF has been attempting to hold to it...

In this case, Russia is deterring Ukraine from launching an offensive, which would be reported as violating the ceasefire. Ukraine is in no position to make major gains against the insurgents, without a devastating response from Russia.

Unfortunately, the Russians not making a drive for Mariupol-Odessa-Transnistria and living with the daily fire from the insurgents are the best that Ukraine can hope for currently.

Since when does Russia believe in fair ceasefires?

The same thing for the FSA right now...for the first three days the FSA held strictly to the Russian/Turkish ceasefire while within hours Assad with support from Hezbollah and RuAF started immediately to attack FSA positions.

I gather that the Iranian-led forces broke the ceasefire first, presumably because Teheran and Damascus believe that all of Syria can be reconquered, whereas Moscow would not be unhappy with a friendly Alawite enclave in Latakia.

IF and this is a big IF...if Russia and Turkey were truly interested in holding the ceasefire...both could simply bomb Hezbollah and Assad positons a few times and you would see a sudden stop of the attacks...

If Turkey did not intervene against the Assadists prior to Russia’s intervention, why would they do so now?

BUT here is the next kicker...Russian and Assad positions are the same...they both are interested in destroying FSA regardless of how sweetly Russia talks at the UN about peace in Syria…

REMEMBER it was the Russian Damascus Ambassador who before the Assad attack on Aleppo publicly stated in a major interview that Assad would not be attacking Aleppo and then surprise surprise Russian bombed and attacked as much as Assad Aleppo....

I call this Russian tactic...simply "the talking attack"...

I see this as private disagreement among the participants in the Assadist coalition, that is manifested in contradictory public statements and military actions.

I gathered from CrowBat’s commentary that the Syrians were flying almost all of the missions over Aleppo city while the Russians were concentrating elsewhere…

Regardless, Putin’s had his small war but Iran isn’t finished, so a smooth operator would exploit their differences…