Russian navy – Syrian campaign
Back in late December, the Russian MOD announced a drawdown (1) of the Russian military in Syria, including the naval presence. The “Admiral Kuznetsov” group, including the cruiser “Peter the Great”, have now left the Syrian shores, following a high level visit from General Ayyoub Chief of General Staff of the Syrian Army, (2) where medals were awarded to Russian personnel for their participation in the campaign.
- Admiral Kuznetsov and cruiser Peter the Great visit:
Syrian delegation lead by Ali Abdullah Ayyoub,Chief of Syrian General Staff visit aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. pic.twitter.com/qRXdfzEYvd
— Military Advisor (@miladvisor) January 6, 2017
Gen. Ayoub visits Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and cruiser Peter the Great
Gen. Ayoub visits Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and cruiser Peter the Great
To wrap up its participation, the Russian MOD released some information in a simple matter of fact manner about the Adm Kuznetsov’s air wing 420 sorties in the Syrian campaign.
The major downside of this was the negative publicity that it drew from the MSM and $88 million lost on two ditched planes. it certainly raised increased of the crucial role and of the dependability of the Arresting gear system. The plus side will never be really be known publicly, apart from the invaluable experience gained and in depth combat testing of systems. The combat experience will leave its traces for some time to come. Despite the ridicule and derision of Western experts, the perceived unprofessionalism & accidents are not correlated to the overall capability of the crew to do their jobs.
To compare the technology used, the Kuznetsov uses conventional analog/ mechanical recovery systems, but the US Navy uses a digitally controlled electronic version, called ARC (Advanced Recovery Control) system.
Admiral Kuznetsov: Long and Challenging Path of the Russian Navy Flagship
Remarkably, the “Admiral Kuznetsov” is the last aircraft carrier to leave the Eastern Med, thus leaving the region without any aircraft carrier presence. The first to leave for home was the “Charles de Gaulle”, in time for Christmas, followed by the arrival and prompt departure of the USS “Dwight Eisenhower”. The “Charles de Gaulle” has gone into a 18 -month refit in Toulon and won’t be operational until June 2018. (In French)
Meanwhile, the US carrier ‘Ike’, called into Marseille, where the antics of 3 French municipal police officers,( taking a leaf out of the Louis de Funes comedy “the gendarmes of St Tropez), hit the headlines, for sailing off onboard. (In French)
It was likely that the Russian navy was already scaling down its Syrian operations, when a key participant, “Admiral Grigorovich“, part of the Russian carrier group left and returned to its Black Sea homeport on the 19th Dec. Subsequently it took part in the recovery operations of the fatal Tu-154 crash off Sochi.
The Russian navy elsewhere
Thousands miles away, the Russian Pacific Fleet destroyer “Admiral Tributs” and the tanker “Boris Butomato”, arrived in Manila on a goodwill visit. The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, paid a visit, along with high ranking Philippines military delegation. The words his wrote in the visitors book included: – “Come back more often to Philippines”.
This is only the 3rd time that the Russian navy has visited the Philippines, a longstanding US ally. This comes at a time when relations with Washington have become strained since President Rodrigo Duterte took office. Although only a goodwill visit, it didn’t preclude high level talk of potential future joint sea & land exercises, as reported by RT:
There is talk that likely future exercises could set the scene for future regional collaboration focused on anti-piracy & counter-terrorism, between Russia, China and the Philippines in the South China Sea, thereby potentially reducing the current geopolitical tensions in the area. On a side note, the “Admiral Tributs” participated in a joint naval exercise with the Chinese Navy in September 2016. It is significant that this week long annual exercise took place in the South China Sea.
‘Dock here anytime’: Duterte visits Russian destroyer, wants Moscow to be ally & protector
South China Sea and Western Pacific
This leads me to the next topic, as the Chinese aircraft carrier, the “Liaoning”, had been recently conducting at sea drills involving its J-15 fighter jets and helicopters. The “Liaoning” and its escorts, sailed out into the Pacific for the first time in late December, before heading into the South China Sea, past Taiwan and Japan, who closely watched its manoeuvres.
China aircraft carrier conducts drill in S. China Sea
All of this activity by the Russian and Chinese navies causes jitters in the region as well as in Washington. So it’s not surprising that on the 5th January, the USS “Carl Vinson” group set sail for the Western Pacific region, the usual show of US exceptionalism, undoubtedly. Significantly, this is the only US carrier on deployment away from the US at the moment.
Carl Vinson Strike Group Set for Deployment to Western Pacific
To finish off, I’ll leave you with this splendid short video on the “Admiral Kuznetsov”:
Enjoy and thank you!
LeDahu
Thanks for an excellent SITREP.
The Kuznetsov and the Peter the Great stayed off the Syrian coast just long enough to “cover” the Russian efforts in Aleppo and to make sure that the Neocons don’t pull some kind of crazy last minute trick. They have apparently concluded that they can leave which I see as a very good sign. For all the smirks in the Neocon media, the Russian Naval Task Force did a superb job as did the Russian Aerospace Forces: the had only a small fraction of the means available to the Neocons yet they succeeded in completely thwarting the Neocon’s plans. With minimal losses, they turned the tide of the war against Syria and now they can draw down knowing that they will always have the option to be back in days if needed.
I would call that a total success and I am proud of these soldiers.
The task of the Russian forces at that time was to face down the US military.
Secondary task was to pick up litter the US had left offshore from Tartus.
Mission accomplished.
A nice gesture by Putin to President Elect Donald Trump.
Agree totally with that. Thank you!
hi LeDahu,
Would not it be better to wait until 2017-01-21 in Syria? Possible false flag?
or is better go to Kaliningrad coast (new troops arrived in Germany)? Another possible false flag?
As a third option, we could have false flag in Ukaine…
Before lame duck o’bomber leave together with his gang of khazars neocons, crazy bloodthirsty psychopaths, we need to have high attention.
Maybe Trump is part of that too and use the surprise factor against Russia?
(brrr… I’m very worried about this!)
What do you (and/or Saker and/or Scott) think of that?
all the best!
No. They tried their luck with the bombing attack on Deir Ez Ezor, but didn’t succeed so not likely for a need for an aircraft carrier in place. As stated yesterday by the Russian MOD, there is total air defence control in Syria. What this translates to into real life on the ground situation I don’t know. Where the trouble is now focused on is a marked intensification of harmful intent on the civilian population, an example is the water poisoned and cut off in Damas or the blowing up of a power stations in the Homs region.
The aircraft carrier had a specific role and it did it, as Peter and The Saker mention above.
No, why send an aircraft carrier into a constricted body of water?. Anyway, two very well armed Buyan corvettes were dispatched to the zone, to counter potential threats back in the autumn. I mentioned this in a previous sitrep.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/26/russia-reinforces-baltic-fleet-with-ships-armed-with-long-range/
No. It won’t be a false flag, but escalations of political attrition and real fighting. Well that’s my opinion anyway.
LeDahu, friends,
before all, thks for ur reply and article.
when I said “false flag”, I was referring to a sabotage to have pretext to start a “hot” approach with RF, for example, dropping a polish airplane and blame RF or drooping RF’s airplane (using german, ukros or polish), as happened in Syria (when Turkey dropped the SU-24).
What do you (and colleagues) think about the increase of pindos troops (and hardware) coming from Germany (Kaliningrad in danger?) and the increase in troops coming to conflict zone in Ukraine?
In case of a conflict already initiated near presidential inauguration, Trump will stop or will let continue?
thanks in advance!
all the best!
Re point 2 first-
The NATO arrival in Germany of hardware and 3500 US troops is a fig leaf for the MSM to flaunt an imaginary picture of NATO doing something against Russian aggression. Militarily it is a drop in the ocean, media and political reassurance for a home audience.
Of course Russia is nonplussed about it all.
Now just watch the media hype of the Russians being their usual self, operating an elderly unreliable carrier, having been ineffective in Syria , when the carrier sails up the Channel once more. Their narrative is so disjointed. 1 min the Russians are dangerous & aggressive, the next ineffective.
“The same procedure as last year”
Re point 1
In my personal opinion, at this stage, no false flags will be needed, the intended victim will not take the bait. It will rather be, slow and gradual ratcheting of frozen conflicts into warmer ones.
Syria has reached a point, where the ‘rebels’ have lost their crown jewel, Aleppo and consequently moved into a new phase of causing total major disruption to as much of the population as possible. If there is trouble brewing it is at Al Bab.
My money is more geopolitical strife in the South China Sea and Western Pacific.
I hope that kind of answers your questions, this is the way I see it.
The BBC just had a news report blaming a national British youth mental illness crisis on Russian activity in Syria – and ***yes*** they literally said this.
The mainstream media depict the change in Russia naval presence as Russia running away in shame. The scale of the co-ordinated mainstream/Soros-fake-indy media attack on Russia and Putin is unprecedented. And it works. Not with our 50%, but with the other 50% of Humanity- the dribblers who never want to think for themselves, or to think critically- but those sheeple who simply want to choose an alpha pack leader, then believe everything his team claims.
The monsters only need 50% to win, so long as they also have all the command and control positions in society. And Tony Blair ensured that all across the West and Asia and Africa they do.
Only yesterday the Golden Globes were used as another outlet to attack Trump, and his anti-war, pro-Russia policies. And do you think the idiot sheeple sucking up every vile word from ‘celebs’ who cheered the genocide in each nation Hollywood’s jews wanted destroyed will fail in their mission this time, just because we are so provably right in Syria? The truth counts for absolutely nothing in this game.
And Putin, on his knees, begs Saudi Arabia and the other Wahhabi states to give Russia a break. The same people who only one year back issued public statements ***promising*** to butcher Russian soldiers in Syria. Does anyone here think Saudi Arabia is going to give Russia what it wants? At this very second, western agents in the Gulf States are studying every intelligence report with their wahhabi allies identifying new cracks in the Syrian defense, so new waves of terrorists can be used to undo everything Putin has achieved so far.
In these games, you are either a ***strong*** man or a ***weak*** man, and which do you think Putin is with his constant “Let’s be reasonable, chaps” approach? The very demonic evil on the BBC shows that the monsters have not given up on Syria in the slightest. And what the West considers ‘unfinished business’ always gets finished.
Meanwhile the West flexes its military muscles in those ex-Soviet states new to NATO, showing that it would never tolerate what Russia so happily tolerates in Syria and Ukraine. The West proves to nations that when a nation is under the protection of the West, no-one dares to threaten it. But Putin lets ***everyone*** threaten nations supposedly under Russia protection with ***zero*** consequence.
Yes we know Putin likes to play a ‘diplomatic’ game, like that he used to take control of Turkey away from NATO. Except he didn’t. America is still fully in control of Turkey in every respect that matters.
The resources of the West and their wahhabi proxies are ***infinite***. All Putin can do in Syria is play the game of the boy pushing his fingers into holes appearing in the dyke. Only by giving Syria the same status as the West gives all members of NATO would the West be scared of attacking Syria, and that means Putin stating that any attack on Syria is the exact same thing as an attack against Russia- and that the attacking agent puts itself in a state of war with Russia. That one act would end, at a stroke, all official and unofficial support given to the terrorist forces. So why doesn’t Putin step up.
Even if Trump proves to be a godsend to Humanity (and let’s face it, even the most optimistic of us doesn’t believe that), Team Trump is tiny compared to Team Blair and all his demonic assets across the globe. There are millions of operatives who will work day and night to undermine Trump across the West, and many of them are in Trump’s own party. Trump can slow their plans at best, but without Putin willing to finally engage in geo-political changes at the global level, even if Trump survives his first term his legacy will be minimal.
In the face of the current ‘peace’ process in Syria, America’s loudest military voice feels confident to hit the world’s press saying Russia has achieved ***nothing*** in Syria. This is how confident the demons are in their current and future plans.
The tide has turned. The demons will not prevail.
The rest is just details and epiphenomena.
Do not worry, everything is under control and goes into right direction:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.ca/2017/01/how-to-make-america-great-again-with.html
Only by giving Syria the same status as the West gives all members of NATO would the West be scared of attacking Syria, and that means Putin stating that any attack on Syria is the exact same thing as an attack against Russia- and that the attacking agent puts itself in a state of war with Russia. That one act would end, at a stroke, all official and unofficial support given to the terrorist forces.
This possibility is what most concerns me — that, seeing itself overthrown everywhere, the Babylonians will use what has long been planned — “the Samson Option” — to destroy everything in the hope that the few, carefully located survivors will be Babylonians who can start the world anew as its lords and masters.
CV 70 joins operational command 7th US fleet. But same time USMC moves to southernjapan base and most modern E3 hawkeye goes along…
look on map…
geewhiz…
This makes the affair in Europe on Ru border make sense – is blocking maneuver.
Hulabaloo in West, attack in East, saith Sun Tsu.
Ivan knows the game. So does anybody who can walk and chew gum…
Excellent report. I read something last week that all the use carrier groups were either stateside, or on their way there.
The Russian ambassador to Greece has been found dead.
ATHENS: Ambassador found dead in his Athens flat on Monday, police said.
Andrei Malanin, 55, was found lying on his back on the bedroom floor, a police source told AFP, adding that there were no signs of forced entry.
Yes a very strange/sad piece of news – saying he died of “natural causes”. What is curious is what is going on in Cyprus – is there a connection? Something doesn’t feel right……
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194876.html
The Cyprus crisis is because of – what else? – gas:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Triangle
That triangle being Cyprus, Israel and Greece.
The Eurasian conductor – the largest submarine gas pipe in the world – has the potential to make Israel a major energy hub, with the discovery of the Leviathan gasfield ( which happens to be fronted by the Gaza Strip.
It is projected to be capable of supplying Europe’s energy needs for the next twenty years.
And there’s more: Trump’s pick for Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross has a history of arbitrage and has been involved in several scandals.
He is also a major player in the Bank of Cyprus, which in turn is a major stakeholder in the Energy Triangle noted above. The other two are DEI ( Greek electricity board) and Quantum Energy (a private equity firm based in Texas).
An informative article on Mr.Ross and another Trump pick, on how they made a killing on foreclosures following the collapse of the subprime market:
https://www.thenation.com/article/wilbur-ross-and-steve-mnuchin-profiteers-of-the-great-foreclosure-machine-go-to-washington/
An excellent overview of this stinking kettle of fish from Global Research:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/war-and-natural-gas-the-israeli-invasion-and-gaza-s-offshore-gas-fields/11680
Fits right in with Nudlemans current coup in Cypris. America never sleeps. Ambassador found dead indeed.
Gone home bar 1, the Carl Vinson. But more are coming out of long programmed overhauls too. For the whole first week of Jan, there wasn’t a single US carrier at sea.
The next carrier scheduled for deployment (got delayed in shipyard) is the USS George Bush at the end of Jan.
Perhaps I ought to point out precisely what “blocking maneuver” means.
While the fairy-tale story about Pearl Harbor attack 1941 says “sudden attack”, in Strategy the goal was the Indonesian oil, from which the Dutch had stopped deliveries – they Japanese had about 90 days of oil… They had to get the oil. The US forward-deployed by direct orders from FDR US Fleet could prevent that, and thus had to be neutralized. FDR got hit harder than he anticipated, but it was not intended to provoke war, not by the Japanese – they were played for suckers… Politics!
Pearl Harbor is a classic in Blocking Maneuvers. On a technical level it ought to be compared to the British attack at Taranto less than 1 year before – Taranto was also a blocking maneuver.
So, is blocking maneuver. Assume this. Now, what’s target?
You bet. But the real affair is in Asia…
What a freak show. We’re so screwed, probably… (Well, it ain’t happened yet, eh?)
Does this mean, by extension, that surrounding Russia from the Ukraine to the sprat factory of the Baltics, is the same kind of blocking maneuver as Pearl Harbor?
I think so…it remains to be proved.
Bear in mind that Pearl Harbor, while it succeeded in a tactical sense, failed. This is because the attack was based on a not-true understanding of the situation, which was a trap – they were being blocked in oil – they were responding to a blocking maneuver that took place in the realm of logistic supply and failed to realize the significance of this fact – hubris, some say. Burroughs would remind people that there is one mark you cannot beat – the mark inside…same truth, beat view… Anyway Pearl Harbor failed because the attacker did not correctly judge the character of his opponent – the opponent’s “mind” did not align with the a-priori beliefs about their occidental opponent. Both these are reasons for the PH failure, and subsequent outcome for Asia, specifically Japan, but all of Asia. Either would have been enough to doom the maneuver. Taranto, to the contrary, was a success – and the Mediterranean was either in contest or won by the British/American forces all through the campaigns there – blocked, in other words, in part or in whole – though these things do leak. Taranto also succeeded because it showed the Japanese how to do “it” in a shallow and assumed safe from aerial-droped torpedoes harbor.
One ought to be careful to avoid the civilian assumptions about the term – there’s nothing non-violent about a blocking maneuver – in fact these things generally involve attacks that serve to engage as well as disperse the opponent and to deveive him as to strategic opjectives.
Given that this is essentially, so far for the Ru, a Julian Defense model, the build up in Europe would seem, logically, to constitute, or indicate a change in “Hannibal’s” strategy of attack.
Thus, since plains warfare is a Slavic specialty, one may expect “Ivan” to recognize the situation, and the character of the attacking party.
What this means is that Ivan sees the set-up in starkly real terms. One may therefore expect an indirect (that’s Liddell Hart’s work for it) or “asymmetric” response. It comes to “if they set a trap and you see the trap, then the trap is for them… Bears do this (they do)… Comrade President P said precisely what Ru would do. Has never pulled a punch.
It is simply not a credible proposition to accept that Comrade President and his cohort would, or could, fail to see the entire series of blocking maneuvers – “sanctions” are blocking maneuvers – for what they are, a long train of actions that point to a proximate grand blocking.
Logic suggests that now the question runs to the Ru turning the build up into a trap – Ivan knows what’s afoot… Only idiot would not savor the double-trap…
When opponent know your intent you are totally FUBAR.
No plan survives first contact, who’s more agile? Place bets.
Who chased krautnazis back to Berlin? Eng/US army stopped Reds at Berlin, sorta, but they would have gone to Dover otherwise…
Who chased Napoleon back to Paris?
Place bets, this time – as CP said – it will not be fought on Russian soil. Maybe so, maybe not so, but this suggests plans exist, not pretty, not at all…
I wish everybody simply go home and play with puppies and their kids… Pax!
anon21
When the US blockaded Japanese oil supplies, Japan was killing hundreds of thousands – millions of people in China.
The battle of midway was touch and go. Whichever force located the other force first won. Both sides were equal so it was down to luck.
What would have happened if Japan had located the US carrier force first and destroyed them?
Hiroshima..different path, same outcome. Once Szilard thought of the gadget, the party’s end was made sure…the question was would Heisenberg do it first, or not.
You are thinking strategy, but matter is one of grand strategy. FDR was operating in GS, Togo in S… Outcome nearly certain after PH… Pity If PH had actually been defended – say by a storm – then it’s hard to say. But FDR had, if I recall correctly, 5 specific traps set, PH was only one. Strategy is big subject, not only game theory. People ought to study it.
What Japan did in China has nothing to do with GS, except so far as it may be used to inflame the masses one way or another. We see such outrage deliberately contrived on the videos today – and used to inflame emotion, for political purpose… So war crime do have a function… But this is generally trivial in history – now, with “5th gen w” who can say? Rhetoric runs deeply into the brain, and in the hands of experts? But it’s only a weapon, it’s not strategy, and way not grand strategy.
Midway is irrelevant to Hiroshima – might have changed date… Not temperature,
Hiroshima : see this, please
http://www.mileswmathis.com/trinity.pdf
The f-35 continues to dazzle and amaze, the moneybags, that is.
Putting Out Fires: F-35 Blaze Caused by Fuel Around the Tailpipe
https://sputniknews.com/military/201701091049415200-fire-f-35-fuel-tailpipe/
“Engine mishaps and faulty cooling wires are just two in a long list of woes for the F-35, but the latest problems indicate an entirely new defect, unrelated to the aircraft’s previous failures. The saga of F-35 technicians putting out one fire after another carries on, almost as if by tradition.”
anon21
When the US blockaded Japanese oil supplies, Japan was killing hundreds of thousands – millions of people in China.
The battle of midway was touch and go. Whichever force located the other force first won. Both sides were equal so it was down to luck.
What would have happened if Japan had located the US carrier force first and destroyed them?
Normally, a platform that incorporates a lot of new technologies is a test bed. The lessons learned, concepts proven can then be incorporated into a new design. It seems the US has placed all its bets on the test bed and all they will receive is the test bed.
‘Not enough Americans protesting NATO eastward expansion’
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/373048-nato-us-europe-russia/
“DS: I think there is, starting from Washington DC, a major push to do everything possible in the next two weeks to create unending hostility between the West and Russia that can’t be undone by Donald Trump or anyone else. Even at the risk of open violence, rather than simply Cold War hostility. This is highly preferable to weapons profiteers as against actual peace breaking out, which is their greatest fear.”
It is also what a Jew nazi power block in israel want. The zionazi “world” is a very connected world, a very organised freakshow, despite the mentality defective sods running it.
This is the same “mistake” Russia does for the 5x time in Syria just before a decisive victory scale/pull back.. what gives? Doesn’t Putin want to finish the job or does he want this conflict to continue(on a smaller scale)?
Even if Aleppo is under control, ISIS forces are still strong and could re-capture any given city at any time, if Russia pulled out completely Syria would be at square zero in a year.
Syria is essentially a skirmish…probe in force kinna thing, big, but probe in force nevertheless.
about the blocking maneuver…evidently my perception is not unique: http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/01/can-russia-stand-by-as-trump-goes-after.html
And, since I mentioned the Julian Strategy, it may inform some understanding of Ru Policy as it will occur in “rhyme” with what Julian became, and is… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal
see how Hannibal was defeated…
And the US victory in the Pacific? It has always been contested. It’s turning into a trap.
The war is not really going yet, but the outcome is nearly certain – just as it was in December of ’41
It’s all over but the crying…
Russia flies four new SU-25s to Syria, and four tanker planes.
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/elite-russian-jets-arrive-syria-aleppo-offensive/