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Quoting Mark Twain, President Vladimir Putin has made his first public statement on Syria during his Direct Line broadcast on Thursday. “Whoever wants to imagine Russia weakened…I want to recall the famous man and writer [Mark Twain], who once said: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’”
During four and a half hours of question-and-answer, Putin responded to questions on the Syrian conflict from a US and later a Turkish reporter. He said the future of the Russian bases at Khmeimim and Tartus is undecided. “The vast majority of [Syrian groups] tell us that they would want our military bases to remain in Syria. I don’t know — we should think about it, because we have to decide for ourselves how we relate to the political forces that are now in control and will control the situation in this country in the future. Our interests ought to coincide. If we stay there, then we have to do something in the interests of the country where we are.”Putin endorsed the Turkish military movements into Syria over the Israeli ones. “Israel is also solving security issues for itself…We hope that Israel someday will leave the territory of Syria, but right now it is bringing in there additional troops. I think there are already thousands of troops. And I have such an impression, that they are not only not going to leave, but they are going to reinforce there…Turkey needs to ensure its security somehow. We understand that all. This is not for today’s meeting, so as not to waste time.”
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/
To Keir Simmons of NBC, Putin said: “You and those who, I repeat, pay your wages, want to present everything that happens in Syria like some kind of failure, the defeat of Russia…We came to Syria ten years ago so that it would not become a terrorist enclave like the fact we observed in some other countries, say, in Afghanistan. In general, we have achieved our goals… And even those groups that fought against the Assad regime, with government troops, also undergo internal changes. No wonder today many European countries and the United States want to establish a relationship with them. If they are terrorist organizations, what are you doing there? So, they’ve changed, have they? This means that to a certain extent, the [Russian] goal has been achieved.
“Furthermore, we did not have ground troops in Syria. They just weren’t there. There are our two bases — air and naval. The ground component consisted of the armedof forces of Syria itself and some, as we all know — there is no secret here – the so-called pro-Iranian combat formations. In our time we even took out of there [Russian] special forces. We didn’t just fight there.
“What has been happening there? When armed opposition groups approached Aleppo, Aleppo was protected by about thirty thousand people. 350 militants entered the city. Government forces, and with them the so-called pro-Iranian units, retreated without a fight, blew up their positions, and left. And also with some small exceptions, where there were some clashes, that was what happened throughout Syria. If earlier, let’s say, the same Iranian friends asked [us] to help them move their units into the territory of Syria, now they asked us to withdraw them from there. We took out four thousand Iranian fighters from the Khmeimim base to Teheran. Part of the so-called pro-Iranian units went without a fight to Lebanon, some to Iraq.
“Today the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic is not easy, of course. We very much hope that there will be peace, tranquility. We support relations with all the groups that control the situation there, with all countries of the region. The vast majority of them tell us that they would want our military bases to remain in Syria. I don’t know — we should think about it, because we have to decide for ourselves how we relate to the political forces that are now in control and will control the situation in this country in the future. Our interests ought to coincide. If we stay there, then we have to do something in the interests of the country where we are.
“What will be our interests there? What can we do for them? This is a question that is waiting for painstaking research on both sides. Already now we can do something, including using these bases – we have already offered it to our partners, including those located in Syria, and neighboring countries. [We] offered the use of, say, the Khmeimim airbase to deliver humanitarian aid in Syria. And this is accepted with understanding and desire to organize this work together. The same applies to the naval base in Tartus. Therefore, whoever wants to imagine Russia weakened, since you are an American, I want to recall the famous man and writer [Mark Twain], who once said: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’”
Later in the broadcast, Putin was asked a question by Ali Jura of the Turkish state news agency: “Mr. President, Israel violates international rights by killing tens of thousands of people, including children in Palestine and Lebanon. Israel now takes advantage of the situation in the region to occupy Syria and violates its sovereignty. How do you comment on the actions of Israel? Did you have a conversation with President Erdogan about the region as a whole? Thank you.”
Source: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75909 – from minute 2:50:12.
“Vladimir Putin: We are in constant contact with President Erdogan. I don’t remember when we spoke to him for the last time, but of course, we discussed the situation in the region, in the Middle East. The viewpoint of Turkey’s President Erdogan is well aware of the events in the Middle East. And our position is well known in Lebanon and Palestine. Our position is not subject to the current situation. We have always believed so and now believe that it is possible to solve the Palestinian problem only by solving the causes of its occurrence. There was the decision made by the UN Security Council at the time that two states should be formed – Israel and Palestine. Israel is established; Palestine, in fact, has not yet been created. That’s the problem.
“Moreover, from its side Israel continues the so-called illegal settlement activity. I don’t know what Israel’s ultimate goals are in the Gaza Strip, but it deserves only of condemnation. We have done this repeatedly at almost all levels, from the public level and our position in the Security Council United Nations. There’s nothing to add here. The same goes for Lebanon.
“What about Syria? It seems, frankly, that Turkey is doing everything to ensure their security on their southern borders during the development of the situation in Syria, to create conditions for the return of refugees from their territory to other territories that are concentrated in the territory of Syria, located under Turkey’s control in fact, and perhaps to move the Kurdish formations from the border. All this is probably possible and, perhaps, even to some extent, to some extent. But still the main beneficiary of what is happening events in Syria — the main beneficiary is, in my opinion, Israel.
“And you can view as you please what Israel is doing, Russia condemns the seizure of any Syrian territory. This is obvious — our position here is not subject to any adjustment. But Israel is also solving security issues for itself. Here is the line in the Golan Heights, a line well known to everybody. Israel has advanced 62-63 kilometers along the front to a depth of 20-25 kilometers. It has entered into the fortifications which were created for Syria by the Soviet Union – this is a type of Maginot line. You know, these are serious fortifications there, really.
“We hope that Israel someday will leave the territory of Syria, but right now it is bringing in there additional troops. I think there are already thousands of troops. And I have such an impression, that they are not only not going to leave, but they are going to reinforce there.
“In fact, the local population has already asked to be included in the Jewish state. Since this is already under way, there’ll be another problem. If everything that happens will lead to the disintegration of Syria, then these are issues which will have to be decided by the local population in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and with the right of nations to self-determination. This is a difficult question — it is not for today’s discussion.
“Of course, we know Turkey, Such a problem [there is] with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been going on for decades. I hope that there will be no escalation, but some politicians of Europe recently told me that at meetings after the First World War the Kurds were promised their own state, then they were deceived, and so on.
“Here are the Kurds in this region – in Turkey more than a dozen million, in Iran, in Iraq – they live in concentrations, how many Kurds are there? You probably know better than me but at least 30-35 million, right? There is a serious Kurdish problem, and the Kurds are serious guys, serious fighters; in Manbij, in my opinion, they fought to the last. That’s what they do.
“We need to decide the Kurdish problem. In the framework of Syria under President Assad they had to solve it, and now it is necessary to resolve it with those authorities who control the territory of Syria. And Turkey needs to somehow ensure its security. We understand that all. This is not for today’s meeting, so as not to waste time. “I just want to say about it, that there will be many problems, but we are on the side of international law and for sovereignty of all states, in respect of their territorial integrity, bearing in mind Syria, including the position on these matters of the authorities who now control the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. In this sense, we are on their side. By the way, we are in contact with them, we are in contact with all groups, including those that are now in the control situation in Syria.”
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Paul Craig Roberts said is Putin capable of strategic thinking? No he’s not, he’s not a grasping capitalist. He’s a bureaucrat that’s why.
Russia knows, like the western leaders, that Ukraine is the pivotal war, once this war is finished then the middle-east can be where the U.S is bled out from the Israeli wound.
The U.S have their Syrian victory, but its another cost on the ledger with more resources needing to be injected into that region that would of gone elsewhere.
Once Ukraine is wrapped up then Russia can move more into the middle-east. The U.S. now has a problem with Turkey and their ambitions, so a victory has turned into more problems.
The U.S. can write down a problem by ending the Palestinian crisis, this is where the foot has to be put onto Israel to cease and desist otherwise weapon deliveries will stop for real.
China may never need to enter the field if the pieces around the are nudged into place. Syria may be the “dead cat bounce” of the American empire.
i don’t know how you could read that and come to that conclusion. did you not understand what he was saying when talked about the pro-iranian fighters pull out into lebanon and iraq. what do you think they will be doing there? sounds like hezbollah just got a big reinforcement of well trained well armed fighters to me. the other half went into iraq, did you know iraq tried to enter syria and was bombed by israel, i’ll bet their not happy about that and glad to have this well trained force, that know syria inside and out.
putin is not a bureaucrat, that’s what we have. you’re just having a hard time understanding strategic thinking, because we have no examples of it in this country. same with old paul craig roberts, supply side economics,lol 😂😆. what passes for strategy in this ponzi scheme of a country.
This is where it comes from:
Nuclear doctrine, special op, Oreshnik missile: what Putin said at Direct Line Q&A session
https://tass.com/politics/1890399
According to Helmer Putin is a ‘mnemonic’ and not a strategic thinker, so Paul Craig Roberts is right.
Putin himself admitted that he was, unfortunately, not a chess player.
Putin pretends that the debacle in Syria is not a debacle, this is pure delusion. Everyone else sees it as a defeat. He stopped his generals from fighting that has been confirmed.
Blaming Iranians or Syrians who didn’t want to fight is absurd. Either it’s a trap set for the zionists and terrorists or it’s a defeat.
For the moment it’s a debacle. The Russians are allegedly moving their defenses systems to Libya (according to western media so to take with a pinch of salt).
How can Putin dismiss the obvious shows a real talent and a real lack of opposition to his power in Russia.
But there might be worse to come.
Putin is hinting at ‘negotiations’ on Ukraine, based on the Istanbul talks which weren’t exactly a victory for Russia.
Russia is surrounded by hostile countries, the territories that Russia should have by now controlled are still not fully in their control, two more NATO members are now at close range with Finland sharing borders, the US and their lackeys escalate a bit more everyday and despite Trump empty promises, the war is escalating, more weapons and troops are poured into the conflict.
If Putin sign the kind of deal Hezbollah has signed in Lebanon, Russia will have lost for good.
Despite the Russian army advances and the technological superiority of Russian missiles, Putin is not yet in a position of power to impose his conditions, especially after the Syrian fiasco.
The only good news is that he said that while he’s ready to talk, it has to be with a legitimate government in Ukraine and Zelensky is not since he cancel elections back in May.
Russians are talking with other people in Ukraine and that puts the west puppet Zelensky on the sides.
However, they keep launching US missiles inside Russia proving once again that the US do not want a truce, peace or anything except chaos.
Putin can’t be that naive, the western regimes want Russia’s death and sooner or later the confrontation will be direct. For the moment Russia and its allies have obvious weapon superiority.
This is when they should strike comprehensively and without any pity to make sure that their targets will never be able to get up again.
Some reality needs to intrude into these discussions.
Russians at peak deployment stationed 4,000 troops in Syria around an airbase on the coast.
Over the decade of deployment only 192 dead Russian servicemen.
Around 1 million Syrians have been killed in this “Syrian” Civil War. It’s estimated that 6,000 Combatants were directly killed by Russian armed forces. 2 million Syrians became external refugees. 10,000s of foreign Sunni fighters entered the country and killed 100s of 1000s of the local Syrians.
The Alawites and Christians will not be able to trust the new Turkish and American backed regime. The Druze are already appealing to the Jews of Israel for protection.
Russia barely did much more than defend an Alawite enclave.
Putin appears to choose his words with care, aware of concerns regarding land and Ukraine and Russia. He cannot condemn Turkey or Israel without being called a hypocrite.
He acknowledged that both nations have a legitimate need to secure their borders, while meekly stating that he hopes Israel will leave Syria. He seems to suggest that he is open to the establishment of a Kurdish state, in what would presumably be the former northeastern part of Syria. He also goes beyond suggesting, and outright calls for, a Palestinian state to be established.
The future of Syria may be a rump state centered around the coast, with a new Kurdistan in the north, greater Israel in the south, and some areas possibly annexed by Turkey.
What kind of discussions are taking place behind the scenes? Is Putin involved in a grand design that allows him to retain territory in what was once eastern Ukraine?
It seems clear that all the terrorist forces coming in from Idlib to Syria were easily vulnerable to Russian air attack. But even the Syrian soldiers west of Aleppo who continued to fight were suddenly abandoned by Russian air cover. Iran asked Russia to allow Syrians contol over their air defences so they could take down Israeli planes. Otherwise Iranian forces could not not be brought in without threat of elimination. But Putin refused.
Now Putin is trying to stitch together some sort of narrative that covers up his treachery. The gibberish he is talking has that purpose.
One way to look at the move in Syria is as a major advance for Judea (not just its most visible part, Israel), using its dominance over various countries through control of their upper layer of society by crypto-Jews.
Here we have two societies whose upper layers have been known to be taken over by Jews. Russia and Turkey. See for example Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together. The website fitzinfo.net has accumulated a wealth of naterial that the Kremlin is under total Jewish dominance, and that Putin, Lavrov and Medvedev are all crypto-Jews. The Turkish empire, too, was destroyed by a cabal of Jews, the Young Turks, and their control over ‘secular’ Turkey was solid before Erdogan came along with his Islamist agenda. But at the top level of Turkish society it’s widely said that Erdogan is Dönmeh.
So three nations, all under Jew control, Russia, Turkey and the US have pulled off this major Judaic move. And there are two more minor ones in the wings: Saudi Arabia, headed by Baghdadi Jews as was established by Saddam’s intelligence agency, and Egypt, where a halachic Jew, Sisi (uncle a big shot in Israel) was installed in a coup.
Why stay around and risk your own forces fighting for folks who refuse to fight for themselves? Just a casual observation, but it strikes me that Putin was trying to avoid an Afghanistan-like debacle. He has plenty of big enough issues on his own border without having to send in boots on the ground and wisely pulled out.
It’s been amusing to see the AQ/ISIS head-choppers transformed by gaslight media into romantic freedumb fighters. Al-Jolani now looks and dresses like a darker version of the handless pianist of Kyiv, who gives western whores of all 57 genders a tingle whenever his mug appear on the jujubox. Some ter-r-r-r-rsts are more equal than others….
Ahmed Sharaa now.
He’s given up the Golani.
You might be right. Then why does Putin not deal with these murdering thugs in Ukraine like the little runt? Also British Media Gloating Betrays Masterminds Behind Kirillov’s Killing. Also we all know the red-coat krauts (remember wasps are germ-anic) are helping these thugs in Ukraine. So why not hit these bastards back so they never get up again?
Blaming Iranians or Syrians who didn’t want to fight is absurd.
You are right.
Putin is lying in order to hide his treason that helped his ally, the genocidal Netanyahu against the interest of the Axis of resistance, the only group helped Palestinians. Putin is a zionist coward, a liar and friend of the genocidal jews. He was in Syria to control Assad for the interest of the genocidal jews. Assad did not have that many options because he is a secular ‘Arab nationalist’ where the majority of the Zionist Arab head of states abandoned him. Zionist Putin is close to Zionist Arabs as well as Zionist Pan Turk-ism, Erdogan, all in the service of the Jewish mafia Tribe and pro ‘greater Israel’. We have seen Erdogan, on the one hand, putting kaffiyeh around his fucking neck, and on the other hand, he let the stolen oil from Baku to reach the genocidal jews through Turkey to kill Palestinian toddlers. If he wanted to stop the genocide, it was enough to turn off the oil, but he didn’t, so traitor Russia. Russia has been with the West during all of her history. Russia along with UK/US designed and implemented the creation of Israel on the stolen land of Palestinians. Without Russian’s vote in 1948, Israel never would have been created.
Putin made a DEAL with Trump to receive concession in exchange for Putin to let Assad DOWN, and he did it and now wants to hide his treason. Shame on him and Russia. No one should trust Russia or Putin. Russia is WEAK, so what Russia does to survive is to SELL her partners for concessions, one by one. Yesterday, Putin betrayed Libya, today,Assad, and Iran tomorrow, and China if he could in order to survive. He is lying when he hold Iran responsible. Putin, during the past many years, forced Assad to to reduce Iranians presence in Syria because Netanyahu in an AGREEMENT with Zionist Putin ordered him to do that. Also, Russians transfer information to Israel regarding whereabouts of Iranians when they arrive in Syria so Netanyahu could kill them by bombing the Iranian position. Putin never allowed Assad to retaliate. Assad was too timid and dependent on Russia to disobey. Many Iranians and Hizbollah were killed this way. Assad, as a secular was not supporting the sacrifices of axis, due to Putin control over Assad. Assad’s father was a strong man and an independent, not like Bashar Assad. Putin made him to be dependent on him, in order to control the forces according to Israel’s interest so Netanyahu can complete his genocide of Palestinians, and the result is a disaster. Iranians should never trust Russia, and if they get a chance, should destroy Russia.
Yeah, it’s clear Putin didn’t knock that briefing out of the park. He must be focused on the upcoming signing ceremony for the armistice in the Ukrainian capital Pripyat with President Freeland.
it may come to that but remember russia and china want the world, that they are about to inherit, to remain as intact as possible. imo they leave zelensky in place, because he is doing the maximum amount of damage to the zioukranazi cause as anyone could do and the same for e.u. and u.k.. when you have such incompetent dolts running your adversaries into the ground, why give them the casus belli, they desire to rally their citizenry, that are about to pull them down? like sun tzu said, why interfere when your enemies are destroying themselves?