Baladi News – (Alaa Noureddine)
It has become apparent over the past few days that Russia has reduced or stopped its aerial coverage of the battles taking place in Kurds and Turkmen mountains of Lattakia countryside as well as the northern areas in Syria, which resulted in advances by the rebels.
The reduced Russian coverages posed several questions about the reasons of decreasing the support or letting the regime forces as well as the Shiite militias alone on the ground. The results of this reduction were crystal clear in Aleppo southern and Lattakia northern country sides, where the rebels could take control over important strategic areas and inflict heavy material losses and casualties on the regime forces and the Iranian militias.
Observers and analysts attributed the recent Russian approach to messages that Russia wants to send to local, regional and international actors related to the Syrian case and the events on the ground.
Rani Jaber, the military analyst at Baladi News Network, said that the reduced level of aerial support for the regime in Aleppo and the coast is merely a Russian way of exerting pressure on the regime. Russia is aware of the real persistence capabilities of the regime alone, which means that it wants to exert some pressure to make the regime lose control over some areas, and particularly in the coast, which is the most sensitive area for the regime and its supporters due to its vicinity of their hometowns. Other than that, there is no logical reason for such reduced coverage.
Jaber believes that Russian pressure might be attributed to the fact that Russia wants to drive the regime towards abandoning or reducing its ties with Iran, or rather expose the weakness of Iran that is unable to stand alone in the Syrian war.
Jaber thinks that the Russian practice would be temporary, and that Russia would intensify its airstrikes as soon as the reasons no longer exist, which means that the rebels must utilize the situation by achieving maximum advances at this period.
On his part, Wael al-Ahmed, a dissident commander from the regime forces, believes that Russia knows the truth of the so called “Syrian Army”. This army cannot persist in any battle, no matter how small it is, due to its corruption and because it was reduced to militias and sectarian thugs. Therefore, the Russia wants to expose the true natures of all their allies to themselves and to the whole world.
Al-Ahmed confirms that “Assad’s Army” lacks missile or aerial capabilities that could fill any Russian gaps on the ground, and “everyone of us knows the antiques used by the Syrian regime, which were bought out from moneys gathered from the Syrian people pockets for decades”
In the same context, observers think that the most important message is for Iran, and Hezbollah in particular, after its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, escalated his tone recently, considering the battle of Aleppo as the “major” battle of the party. However, Hezbollah militia announced two days later that it would be impossible to “blockade” or control Aleppo.
Others believe that the international conciliation among Russia, Turkey, and Israel brought about a change on the ground, where Russia seeks to prove to the conciliating parties its ability to control the situation in the Syrian battlefield as well as other levels.