OUR N E W   W E B   S I T E   "WORLD AIR FORCE NEWS"
 
  
 
 

WORLD AIR WAR HISTORY


 
  HOME > War Stories & Memories >

Russian Navy Pulls Personnel Out of Syria Base – Deputy FM

Russian Navy Pulls Personnel Out of Syria Base – Deputy FM

Russia currently has no military personnel at its resupply facility in the Syrian port of Tartus, a senior diplomat said, though an expert affiliated with the Ministry of Defense downplayed it as a possible temporary measure.

“Currently, there is no one in Syria from the Russian Defense Ministry,” Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the Al-Hayat international pan-Arabic newspaper.

“We never, at any time, had a real military base in Tartus… That center has no military or strategic significance. It never did and it doesn't now,” Bogdanov added, speaking in an interview that was first published last Friday in Arabic.

The naval maintenance center in Tartus, established in Soviet times, remains Russia’s last military foothold outside the former Soviet Union. The facility, used for the maintenance and resupply of Russian warships in the Mediterranean, had a staff of “several dozen,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in February.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Thursday that the center has been serviced exclusively by civilian staff “for a long time,” but stressed it had no plans to abandon the facility.

An unnamed military official was cited by Vedomosti business daily Wednesday as saying that the Russian leadership was worried about the safety of the facility’s personnel, given the ongoing civil war in Syria. More than 90,000 people have been killed in the country since fighting broke out between government forces and rebels in March 2011, according to the latest UN figures.

Any incident involving Russian servicemen in Syria could also have unwanted political repercussions, the source said. Moscow has been providing diplomatic backing to embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad against pressure from Western powers and Gulf kingdoms.

The Russian Navy currently has a flotilla of 16 warships and auxiliary ships in the Mediterranean, but no Russian ships have called at Tartus in recent months, according to Russia’s General Staff.

The facility in Tartus only sees use on rare occasions when Russian warships call there, said Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense monthly Russian-language magazine and head of the Defense Ministry’s public council.

“[The pullout of military personnel] probably means that there are simply no current plans to use the base in Tartus,” he told RIA Novosti on Thursday.

“They’ll likely redeploy when it’s needed. It’s just a technicality,” Korotchenko said.

(The story was updated with Ministry of Defense comment.)


Source: MOSCOW, RIA NovostiNews - 27 June 2013

Photo: The Russian Navy Pulls Personnel Out of Syria Base – Deputy FM (Photo by © AFP 2013/ SANA)



(27.06.2013)


 
  CONTINENTAL NEWS:

American Air Force News
African Air Force News
Asian Air Force News
European Air Force News
Middle Eastern AF News
Ocean Air Force News


• Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) 50 years of tradition

(6.08.2021)
Fifty years ago, on July 11, Canada's newest airshow team took to the air for their first major airshow at CFB Moose Jaw. ...>>

• Russian AF bombs jihadist forces near Turkish military post

(12.05.2019)
The Russian Air Force unleashed a new round of airstrikes over the northwestern countryside of the Hama Governorate this evening, targeting the positions of the jihadist and Turkis...>>

• Iran's Guards commander says U.S. military presence in Gulf is 'an opportunity': ISNA

(12.05.2019)
The United States’ military presence in the Gulf used to be a serious threat but now it is an opportunity, a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday, accordi...>>

• USAF F-22 Raptor stealth jets got 587 aircraft to back off in their ‘combat surge’ over Syria

(6.11.2018)
U.S. Air Force F-22s recently completed their first “combat surge” in operations over Syria, and in doing so deterred almost 600 Syria, Iranian and Russian combat aircraft in the c...>>

• Historical Events on January 18 - On This Day

(18.01.2018)
January 18 - Military and Military Aviation History (War Stories & Memories) - On This Day...>>

• 2 Million Dead or More: North Korea war

(15.09.2017)
2 Million Dead (or More): Why the World Is Not Ready for War with North Korea. The label of the North Korean state as a Marxist-Leninist regime, even of the particularly repressive...>>

• US Pullout From INF Treaty Likely to Set Off New Cold War - NSA Whistleblower

(28.06.2017)
Former NSA technical director William Binney claims that any US unilateral withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty could trigger a new Cold War between R...>>

 



       info@xairforces.net Webmaster: REFLX DESIGN - © 2011 xairforces / Aviation Society,