The Russians “began” a “second Afghanistan”. And again in the style of the “Kharkiv catastrophe” – that is, a breakthrough where no one in the Kremlin expected, because everyone had time to celebrate the victory and forget about the enemy. Yes, we are talking about Aleppo, or in Arabic – Aleppo. This city has become a real mess for Assad and Putin. The parallels between the Syrian city and the Ukrainian Kharkiv are actually significant.
There are some parallels between the Ukrainian Kherson and another Syrian city – Hama, which the rebels have already managed to liberate. If “Aleppo in 3 days”, then Hama should be “in a week”. From there, the Assads also ” temporarily retreated ” along the only possible road, where they were pursued by the rebels. However, in Hama, unlike Kherson, there are no large rivers, so the parallels are not so clear.
Although this city is a symbol of resistance to the Assad regime, because it was there that the Syrian revolution began more than 10 years ago, which cannot possibly end due to the intervention of the Kremlin and Tehran.
The parallels between Syrian and Ukrainian cities look especially powerful due to the fact that the “swamps are already spreading throughout the “Unwashed”.
Allegedly, “Ukrainian advisors” are behind the loss of Aleppo, as RIA Novosti first reported, and then the Turkish monitoring community Clash Report published an interview (even with infographics – for clarity!) with one of the leaders of the rebel drone pilots, Abu Bakr.
He, along with his fighters, says that the rebels themselves allegedly turned to Ukrainian intelligence for advice, and they helped. And how – they provided drawings of drone components and ammunition for them, adapted for quick stamping on 3D printers, and also helped deploy a system for transmitting signals and guiding UAVs to targets.
What Assad and the Russians were completely unprepared for, and why their columns suffered significant losses even on the approach to the combat zone. Even one of Assad’s main military commanders, General Suhail al-Hassan, who was supposed to defend Hama with special forces reinforcements, was wounded on the approach to the city. Yes, drones are important.
The collapse of the front of the Assad-Russian-Iranian forces began precisely with Aleppo.
Aleppo was the main target of the Russians in 2015, where they first used the same tactics that they later used in Ukraine.
We are talking about massive indiscriminate bombing and shelling of residential buildings, where small infantry groups of “Wagner” mercenaries and pro-Iranian “Shiite militia” then entered the ruins.
The Russian Aerospace Forces controlled the sky, the Russian Navy controlled the sea, which was supplied by large landing ships (thanks to the base in Tartus, to which the rebels had already approached 80 km), and Hezbollah and Iranian “military consultants” led by the “Shiite militia” and mercenaries controlled the land. The Russians tried to use all these approaches against the Ukrainians.
Aleppo is the main economic center and the most densely populated city of pre-war Syria, which still retains its potential – there are 3.5-4 million residents there. In Damascus, for comparison, there are 2.5 million.
This is a “market city” at the crossroads of Syria, Turkey, and Kurdistan, and a key economic center of the historical region of the Levant (“Sham” in Arabic), where the land branch of the same Silk Road runs from Central Asia to the Mediterranean Sea.
More importantly, Aleppo province, whose capital is Aleppo, is the main center of Syria’s military-industrial production. The town of Sfira in the south of the province is especially important, for which battles are already underway. It can be compared to the Ukrainian Izyum in terms of its role in Syria’s military-industrial complex.
By losing the province of Aleppo, Assad will actually lose his own military-industrial complex as a complete production cycle.
That’s why, by the way, the rebels captured so much different equipment – after all, they captured the Assadites’ rembas.
Also, a possible alternative route for overland oil supplies from the Persian Gulf countries and Iraq to Turkey passes through Aleppo, which is also important for Iran and the Russian Federation, because they themselves are oil producers and do not need any alternatives.
But what they desperately need is a highway between Damascus and Iran, which runs past the border with Turkey and probably provides the largest flow of Iranian supplies to the Assads. Without them, the Assad regime will find itself under threat of its very existence. After all, sea supplies from Russia alone will definitely not be enough right now.
That is, whoever controls Aleppo and the province of Aleppo gets the most powerful “cards” in the Syrian layout. This is similar to the situation with Slobozhanshchyna, which is also extremely important for Ukraine and Russia, and as long as it remains unoccupied, the Kremlin will not be able to talk about any control over Donbas or victory in the war. That is why it is rushing here, regardless of the losses.
The importance of this city is also shown by the fact that in 2015 the Turks were not afraid to shoot down an impudent Russian plane that flew into Turkish territory during the fighting for the Syrian border on a fairly wide front from the sea coast to Aleppo. In response, the Russians refused to buy Turkish tomatoes for several months, but they stopped provoking the Turks.
Nevertheless, Aleppo, thanks to air strikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces, was still lost in 2016, and only after almost 8 years was the opposition able to regain it.
By the way, it was then that the Russians first massively used aviation to strike civilian water and energy infrastructure to force the defenders of Aleppo to surrender.
For example, in September 2016, the Russians deliberately bombed a pumping station, leaving a million people in the city without water. A very familiar story from the Ukrainian experience.
The Kremlin spent about 35 billion rubles on the military operation in Syria in 2015-16 alone, which was about $500 million at the then exchange rate. However, Russian losses in people and equipment were extremely insignificant, which contributed to the attack on Ukraine in the future, because Putin and his “shobla” assured themselves that the same would happen to the Ukrainians.
Officially, the Russian Ministry of Defense acknowledged only 116 deaths. They did not count mercenaries from a number of private military companies. However, there is already a public list of Russian losses, including mercenaries from Wagner and Redut, which, in particular, included Ukrainian citizens from among the separatists.
In general, according to confirmed data, the Russian Federation lost from 485 to 506 killed. But this is the confirmed data – in fact, a list of obituaries. For comparison, according to the “Goryushko” project, in November 2024 alone, 5.6 thousand obituaries were published in the Russian Federation. In total, 83.4 thousand obituaries were recorded as of December 1, and as of December 5, there were already 84.4 thousand.
Plus 48 thousand applications for DNA tests from relatives of missing Russian mercenaries, who are probably no longer residents (after all, why would they need DNA tests then?), and which Putin’s niece, who is also the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, announced publicly. That is, these are not all missing people, but only those whose bodies were found and whose relatives want to make sure that these are, in fact, the bodies of their sons, husbands or fathers.
This is the price of advancing the Russian Armed Forces “at any cost” in Donbas and Kursk, as well as the price of Putin’s self-confidence, who first “tested” his troops on the Syrians and Aleppo with Hama, and then decided that it would be just as easy with the Ukrainians.
Of course, one must be very careful when drawing parallels between Syria and Ukraine, because we have a war between two countries, and there is a civil war, between a bunch of groups that are fighting not only with Assad, but also among themselves. Nevertheless, this story from Aleppo clearly shows that resistance to the Russians is growing all over the world precisely because they have proven unable to achieve their strategic goals in Ukraine.
And why did Russia so persistently invade Syria on the other side of the world in 2015? Because after “Our Crimea,” Putin felt like a great commander, and the majority of Russians who supported the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula showed their rotten, predatory nature – that they are ready for any sanctions and economic restrictions, that they are ready to be poorer if this is compensated by the seizure of new territories and “greatness.”
That is, let them live in poverty, but the main thing is to capture their neighbor, and for NATO to be afraid of them. And Syria seemed to Putin a good continuation after the capture of Crimea and Donetsk and Luhansk, in order to show his “greatness” against the backdrop of the crisis after Western sanctions. “A small victorious war” is generally a “classic” of Russian foreign policy.
That is why Rosprop told Russians about victories in Syria with such pomp and pathos. Like “Krymnash”, a victorious myth was created over Syria. And that is why the Russians and the Kremlin are now so painfully experiencing the loss of their influence in this distant country. Despite the progress on Ukrainian territory, Russian media are now busy with the topic of Syria.
Because although there is progress in Ukraine, it comes at an extremely heavy price. Any sane person will not accept such victories. After all, the Russian Federation gained progress in 2024 by only 0.5% of Ukrainian territory, but it suffered huge losses that are increasingly difficult to hide.
And Syria, even if Russia loses, is a good distraction for Russian “deep-sea explorers.”
There are also problems with the ruble and finances in general… The Kremlin now has many topics from which it needs to distract those who are “outside politics.” But such attention to Syria can play a “bad joke” on the Kremlin – if the rebels approach the Russian Aerospace Forces base in Hmeimim or the naval base in Tartus, to which the rebels are about 50 km and 80 km away, respectively.
All these prospects also explain the interest of the domestic GUR, which now makes daily reports on the situation in Syria, taking into account the losses of the Syrian regime and the Russians. We see that the Russian-Ukrainian war is becoming more and more global, opening new fronts for the Russians, who are becoming a real “Achilles heel” for the Russian “Colossus”.
The loss of Aleppo and the Russian defeats in Syria, as well as in Africa, allow us and our partners to stick extremely tangible “needles” into the Russians’ vulnerable spots, “pulling out” their resources that could have gone to the war against Ukraine. And the loss of Syria for Putin could significantly weaken his position in potential negotiations with Trump, the EU, and Ukraine.
Andriy Popov
(C)UNIAN 2024