It is naive to believe that the situation in the Middle East today is controlled by some global behind-the-scenes force that started the conflict in Syria, trying to achieve some of its secret interests. This is wrong. In the Middle East, it is primarily regional actors who sort things out among themselves.

Thus, three major Middle Eastern players were involved in the Syrian conflict. This Saudi Arabia, Iran and Türkiye. All other forces are secondary. However, they do not play the same game - each plays their own.

Saudi Arabia all last years is guided by a single goal - to become the undisputed leader of the entire Arab world. And in general, the country has indeed succeeded in achieving dominance in the Middle East in many ways, despite all the efforts of its rivals to prevent this.

Until 2011, Egypt was the main contender for leadership in the region, but the events of the Arab Spring left the country, which found itself in a very difficult economic situation, no chance.

On this wave, Qatar (in alliance with Turkey) decided to try its luck, achieving particular success in 2011-2012. In 2012, Mohammed Morsi, representing the Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun* movement, closely associated with Qatar and Turkey at that time, became the President of Egypt. A very real threat of dual Qatari-Turkish hegemony in the region began to loom before Saudi Arabia.

However, Saudi Arabia still outplayed Qatar by creating a coalition of all countries Persian Gulf(except, of course, Qatar and, to some extent, pursuing a fairly independent policy of Oman), who jointly averted this very small, but rich country, which loudly declared itself during the Arab Spring, has been relegated to the background.

We must pay tribute to the skills of Saudi diplomats: the Egyptian military, Israel, the financial sharks of Dubai, the Egyptian Trotskyist leftists, the realist politicians of the United States, and even Russia acted as a united anti-Ikhwank-anti-Qatar front. In 2013, Morsi was overthrown by this extremely broad coalition, and the Muslim Brotherhood was defeated.

This effectively ends the Qatari intrigue in the Middle East. But this episode is important for another reason: Saudi Arabia then demonstrated to the whole world its ability to use external forces, among which, when the Arabs needed it, were the United States and, in certain episodes, Russia.

The current President of Egypt Al-Sisi, by the way, receives money from Saudi Arabia (as, incidentally, before that Morsi received money from Qatar), and as they say, he who pays the money calls the tune. Of course, there can be no talk of any independent policy for Egypt now.

Saudi Arabia’s main competitors in the Middle East today are Iran and Turkey, and the main axis of confrontation directly in Syria is certainly the Saudi-Iranian axis, which is further complicated by Turkish intervention.

It is usually said that Iran supports Damascus simply because it supports the Shiites in the fight against the Sunnis. Everything, of course, is much more complicated. For example, calling Yemeni Zaydis Shiites can be a stretch, but Alawites are generally representatives of a religion that cannot, strictly speaking, be considered Islam (I’m afraid that only representatives of the dedicated Alawite religious elite will agree with me on this in their hearts, ukkal, but not the uninitiated ordinary Alawite masses, jukhhal). And in Shiite educational institutions Until quite recently, it was taught that a Shiite who shakes hands with an Alawite is obliged to undergo a certain rite of purification before praying. I witnessed this myself.

But the Iranians showed miracles of wisdom in diplomacy, managing to forget the old ritual contradictions and creating a very broad coalition of movements that had not been considered Shiism for a very long time and which, due to external threats ready to join virtually anyone, forgetting old differences.

By creating an “anti-Wahhabi” coalition, Iran pursued a very specific goal: to strengthen its position in Arab world and create a counterweight to Saudi Arabia.

Allies were needed, which Iran found primarily among the colossal Shiite community of Iraq, the Shiite majority population of Bahrain, in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia itself, Lebanon - a country of minorities where no group is a majority at all, the Houthis of Yemen and, of course, the Shiites, Alawites and generally non-Sunni Syrians, who for the most part in the current situation are on the side of Assad.

Also on the side of Iran is the abnormally strong Lebanese Hezbollah, which at one time withstood a direct confrontation with the most powerful militarily power - Israel, which was once capable of defeating several times its size in six days. Arab states. Hezbollah is one of the few forces in the region that supports the Assad regime and the Syrian Shiites sincerely, out of a sense of duty to its loyal allies. Largely because they found themselves in extreme predicament, but, of course, also for the struggle for self-preservation, realizing that the fall of the Assad regime could catastrophically undermine the position of the Shiite community in Lebanon.

In general, many local residents, not without some reason, consider Lebanon and Syria to be one country. In the event of the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Lebanon, the Sunnis would definitely strengthen, which is absolutely unacceptable for Hezbollah, so the decision to support the Syrian president was the only possible one for this most powerful fighting force in Lebanon.

But you still need to assess Iran’s strengths sensibly: having scattered groups of non-Sunni minorities as allies, achieving total dominance in the Middle East today is unrealistic. However, it is quite possible to create a tangible counterbalance to the regional dominance of Saudi Arabia, which is already a significant success.

Turkey's main interest in Syria is the Kurds, and for this reason its gross interference in the affairs of its neighbor was inevitable. At the same time, it would seem that Turkey’s absolutely illogical and barbaric first intervention in Syria on the side of Assad’s opponents was associated primarily with an attempt to strengthen its position as a regional leader, which Turkey claims on a par with Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It is important that there was no extraordinary tension between Turkey and the Assad regime before the Arab Spring, but in 2012 the Turks carried out a fundamentally incorrect political analysis, believing, like the rest of the world, with the exception of some experts, that the fall of the Assad regime is literally a question several days or at most weeks. Well, ignorance of the specifics of Syrian political culture took its toll.

It seemed to everyone that if several districts of the capital were occupied by the rebels, then the regime would inevitably come to an end. The Turks were preparing to divide the spoils and intervened, hoping to grab something from the remnants of Syria, ahead of Saudi Arabia in this. But the regime still did not fall.

And, of course, Turkish politicians could not help but take the chance to advertise themselves by supporting the Turks living on the northern border of the country. However, the important task now, as in 2012, is to wait for the collapse of Syria and grab our piece of the pie. The Turks cannot allow Syria to be divided between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Although now the task of preventing the unification of the Kurdish lands into a single belt, which would generally take Turkey out of the “Syrian game”, has almost come to the fore for Turkey, and also raised the question of creating a Kurdish state, which could not but stimulate there is already an active movement for Kurdish independence in Turkey itself. In order to prevent the unification of the two Kurdish enclaves of Syria into one, the Turks are quite ready to enter into confrontation with IS* and occupy IS-controlled territories - the main thing is that the Kurds do not have time to occupy them.

Quite often, events occur in the Middle East that, if you think about it, do not correspond to the interests of Russia, the United States or Europe, but we are accustomed to looking at the East precisely through the prism of the interests of the West, not paying attention to the interests of macro-players in the region itself. The problem is that many of the events that seem inexplicable to us often fully correspond to the interests of the Middle Eastern powers.

Russia is acting in Syria at the invitation of Assad. The Americans invited themselves. And most often it turns out that through the hands of the United States, local actors who are dividing spheres of influence are trying to achieve their own goals.

The Americans probably began to guess about this, but if so, then now they can no longer just up and leave Syria. This would mean a complete loss of face. Therefore, they are forced to help Middle Eastern players divide Syria among themselves, hiding behind their own national interests, which the United States, of course, does not have in Syria.

Now, for example, they are doing a good job of playing along with the interests of the Syrian Kurds, among whom, by the way, a party of openly leftist orientation dominates, as a result of which American special forces often have to fight fighting in overalls with almost communist symbols...

In Syria, several hundred soldiers were killed in one day on Friday. Data on the death toll vary. According to some, more than 600 Russian military personnel (military contractors allegedly from PMCs) were killed, according to others, more than 200. To date, it has been possible to collect quite a bit of information about the events and the consequences of direct fire contact between the Russian military and the American army. According to the latest data, the coalition forces suffered no losses as a result of the conflict.

1. What was the point of the attack on the Kurdish positions in the Euphrates region?

Most likely, the main target of the attack by mixed Russian-Assad units was the oil-bearing region in South-West Syria, in which Russia has long been interested. The fact is that despite the fact that Assad and the Kremlin, together with Iran, control approximately 40-50% of the territory of Syria, they have no economic opportunity to compensate for the costs of the war, and most importantly, there are no resources to restore the completely destroyed territory that they control. Thus, the Kremlin came up with the idea of ​​occupying oil-bearing areas 80 kilometers from Deir ez-Zor, where it is possible in the future that Rosneft and Gazprom will be able to expand their activities. However, just a few days before the Russian military moved into this area, the territory was taken under control by the Syrian opposition, which is part of an anti-terrorist coalition with the US military. There were also American military advisers in the ranks of the forces of the democratic Syrian opposition, including on the front lines.

Nevertheless, the Kremlin nevertheless decided to “test the area” and in the event weak resistance seize territory. The operation was prepared at first demonstratively, and after the bridge across the Euphrates, built by the Russian military, was also demonstratively destroyed, the accumulation of large forces for the offensive began.

2. How the operation developed Russian troops in Syria.

General Hassan, commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the region, points to a spot on the map east of the city of Deir ez-Zor, 80 kilometers southeast of here, where he says tanks and artillery supporting President Bashar al-Assad's regime began advancing Wednesday evening toward the headquarters occupied by his forces and U.S. Special Operations Forces advisers (Hassan, like some other senior Kurdish commanders, does not give his full name).

According to Hassan, he received intelligence information about the preparation of an offensive by pro-regime forces. At 9:30 pm on Wednesday, about half an hour before the offensive began, he called a Russian liaison officer in Deir ez-Zor, with whom he is in contact, in the hope that he could stop the operation. "We said that there was a certain movement going on and that we would not want to attack the participants in these actions. They (the Russians) did not accept our proposal, they denied everything and said that nothing was happening," Hassan said through an interpreter. He spoke with several reporters who arrived here on Thursday with Maj. Gen. James Jarrard, who oversees U.S. special operations forces in Syria and Iraq.

American officers made a similar attempt aimed at preventing clashes. As the Pentagon's statement on Thursday emphasized, "coalition officials remained in constant contact with their Russian counterparts before, during and after" the offensive. “The Russian military has assured coalition representatives that they will not attack nearby coalition forces,” the statement said.

Hassan said the attack began around 10 p.m., with pro-regime forces advancing under cover of tank and artillery fire that exploded about 450 meters from the SDF and U.S. positions.

In total, one battalion-tactical group was allegedly initially involved in the attack, which included more than 10 tanks and about three dozen units of other armored vehicles. After the American military retreated from the forward positions, the Russians decided to develop the offensive and bring into action a second, reserve battalion-tactical group, the exact number of which is unknown.

The US Air Force responded to this threat with devastating strikes, initially with high-precision artillery and possibly, judging by eyewitnesses, the use of HIMARS (English High Mobility Artillery Rocket System - pron. Haymars) - an American highly mobile missile and artillery system for operational-tactical purposes. These are rockets that can fly up to 200 km. in five minutes and destroy up to 50 targets in one salvo with precision-guided ammunition. Most likely, it was with the help of this system that Russian artillery covering batteries were destroyed, and the drones were used only for target designation of fire. After the destruction of the enemy artillery, as well as the operational formations of the Russians and Assadites, a blow was struck to the rear units, which were actually destroyed on the march by the second BTG.

At the same time, the electronic warfare system operated, completely suppressing communications in operational formations, which explains that it was possible to obtain a transcript of the conversations of the rear groups. The air was probably controlled by two pairs (as usual) of F22 Raptors, monitoring the possible appearance of Russian aviation in a given area.

In the midst of the carnage, Hassan said, a Russian liaison officer called him again and asked him to stop fighting for a while so he could pick up the dead and wounded in an offensive he denied. The Kurdish commander saw this as treachery. “We don’t trust the Russians anymore,” Hasan said. And when one reporter noted the irony of the situation - a Russian officer first denies carrying out an attack and then asks for a ceasefire - Hassan said: "It's funny that a superpower doesn't know what its forces are doing on the ground."

Approximately two hours after the counterattacks, 80% of all Russian and Assadite forces were destroyed. Now the “flea hunt” began - using the “anti-guerrilla” AC130 and two pairs of attack helicopters, the Americans, under the cover of the F22, finally cleared the enemy’s offensive area.

You can see roughly how this happens in the video below (archival recording):

The total losses of the Russian Federation and Assad amounted to up to 90% of all equipment and 70-80% of manpower. The American military emerged from the battle, in all likelihood, without losses. The entire operation lasted about six hours.

3. Why do the data on Russian casualties differ?

The main reason is the complete secrecy of information from the beginning of the operation by the Russian Army until its completion. In addition, there were two battalion tactical groups. Probably in the first one (on the line of contact) 217 ​​Russians (mercenaries from PMCs) died. The second group was defeated on the march (at least three companies of Russians). Hence the difference in assessment - from 217 to 640 Russian military personnel. It must be said that in reality, the coalition forces completely destroyed not only the forward group, but also the artillery support group, as well as the rear group, including the operational headquarters that commanded the offensive.

4. What is PMC "Wagner" and why do they write that they were the only ones who died?

PMC "Wagner" is a camouflage name for the most combat-ready Russian units in Syria, the so-called "Ichtamnets". These are assault special forces units that previously actively fought in Ukraine, and now in Syria. Before the offensive, Russian military personnel from these units surrender their passports. military ID cards, changing into the uniform of Assad’s troops. In reality, they are all professional Russian military contractors. The coalition is well aware of this and monitors their movements constantly.

5. What are the consequences of this operation for the Kremlin and the coalition?

It must be said that the complete destruction of the Russian military group by American forces in Syria in the first hours caused a shock both at the headquarters of the Russian troops in Syria and in the Kremlin subsequently. It was unexpected not only that the Americans responded to the Kremlin’s challenge in the oil-bearing region of Syria, but also the power with which they responded. It is estimated that Russian units destroyed in southern Syria accounted for about 20% of all Russian assault forces. They were destroyed in a few hours. Within a few hours, the American side announced from official sources that it had destroyed Assad’s forces during their attack on coalition positions. They also stated that they knew nothing about any “Russian ichtamnets” in this area. A day later, about 150 wounded Russians were flown to Russia on two planes. Some of the wounded were left on the territory of Russian air bases in Syria.

The Kremlin refrained from a clear response, expressing only “deep concern” about the current situation in southern Syria. Most likely, in the near future, Russia will refrain from carrying out any operations in the direction of coalition troops, having learned a cruel lesson. According to experts, in the event of a conflict with the coalition, Russia could lose all its bases in Syria within three days.

A day after the events in the Deir ez-Zor area, an active operation of the Israeli army began in the Damascus area. Having discovered an Iranian-made drone in its airspace, the Israeli army shot it down and then launched a massive strike on military installations of Hezbollah and Assad’s forces. Then, after the loss of one of its aircraft (presumably shot down by the S-300 air defense system), Israel destroyed 8 air defense batteries simultaneously in the Damascus area with a massive strike.

Conclusions.

Probably in the near future, military operations in Syria will intensify mainly in the central regions. The situation around the Russian military group will deteriorate significantly in the coming months, which could lead, if clear agreements are not reached, to its evacuation in the middle or end of the year, as well as the annihilation of the Assad regime subsequently.

The US Army has proven its overwhelming superiority in this theater of operations. Starting from technical superiority and ending with methods of combat and command and control. The Russian troops prepared and carried out a completely mediocre and senseless operation, which was identified at the planning stage. Besides, Russian army is not capable of conducting night offensive operations - the troops of the Assadites and Russians were shot virtually as if in a shooting range, and with the latter completely losing orientation.

Here is a transcript of the radio exchange on this matter. Russian media They are silent on this matter, since the President of the Russian Federation has already officially announced that a final victory has been won in Syria and therefore there should be no deaths.

The information was taken from the WarGonzo Telegram channel, which is run by military correspondent Semyon Pegov...

Voice 1: "...In short, they fucked our people up, in short. In one company, fuck 200 people, fuck 200 people at once, in another there are 10 people, and I don’t know about the third, but there they also got very disheveled in general Well, in short, three companies suffered, so they beat the Pindos, at first they covered the fucking shit with artillery, and then they raised the fucking 4 turntables and launched them into the carousel, in short, with heavy-caliber machine guns, damn, in short, they fucked us all except machine guns, damn there was nothing at all, well, not to mention some kind of man-portable air defense system and so on, in short, they disheveled it there, well, they created hell there and the Pindos specifically and clearly knew that we were coming, our Russians were coming to squeeze out the plant and they were at this plant in short, we sat there, in short, we finally got some hard fucks, now the boys called me back, fuck, they’re sitting there drinking, in short, there’s a lot of very fucked up missing people, well, that’s just another fucking thing. fucking humiliation and well, in short, fuck us, nunikto, fuck@y, it doesn’t even count how the devils were treated in general, I think that our people will now fucking fuck our government and no one will do anything in response and no one will destroy anyone . Fuck this, these are the losses we have!"

Voice 2: “Brother, look. There are 177 killed - only the 5th company. The 2nd company was practically not affected. In short, the 5th company was completely destroyed, they were crushed there by aviation, helicopters, artillery, and the Kurds and the Americans trampled on them, The boys simply didn’t have a chance, almost all of the 5 fell down. Here are the remains of the heavy ones, now “Tulpan” will come at night today, let’s meet then, Viktorovich is also in touch, in my opinion, if ours, it’s also minus.”

Voice 3: “In short, the guy just called back, they lined up in a column, they didn’t get to these three hundred meters, fucking seven hundred, he says, to the positions, one platoon went forward, and these, the column, stood. They’re not shorter than three hundred meters They got there. They raised the American flag and the art started to kick hard at them, and then the turntables flew up and started fucking everyone, so they ran... Now the guy called back - a total of 215 "two hundredths", it seems like that, in short they just rolled out hard. ... They identified themselves... What did our people even hope for? Like, they'll get scared? Who knows... In short, this is bullshit... They can't identify anyone at all, they just gave a fuck about the standing column. they didn’t even move with artillery, the infantry didn’t even move forward, they just screwed up with artillery, and that’s it, fucked up.”

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It is naive to believe that the situation in the Middle East today is controlled by some global behind-the-scenes force that started the conflict in Syria, trying to achieve some of its secret interests. This is wrong. In the Middle East, it is primarily regional actors who sort things out among themselves.

Thus, three major Middle Eastern players were involved in the Syrian conflict. These are Saudi Arabia, Iran and Türkiye. All other forces are secondary. However, they do not play the same game - each plays their own.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been guided by a single goal - to become the unconditional leader of the entire Arab world. And in general, the country has indeed succeeded in achieving dominance in the Middle East in many ways, despite all the efforts of its rivals to prevent this.

Until 2011, Egypt was the main contender for leadership in the region, but the events of the Arab Spring left the country, which found itself in a very difficult economic situation, no chance.

On this wave, Qatar (in alliance with Turkey) decided to try its luck, achieving particular success in 2011-2012. In 2012, Mohammed Morsi, representing the Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun* movement, closely associated with Qatar and Turkey at that time, became the President of Egypt. A very real threat of dual Qatari-Turkish hegemony in the region began to loom before Saudi Arabia.

However, Saudi Arabia still outplayed Qatar, creating a coalition from all the countries of the Persian Gulf (except, of course, Qatar and, to some extent, pursuing a fairly independent policy of Oman), which jointly took away this very small but rich country, which had loudly declared itself during Arab Spring, in the background.

We must pay tribute to the skills of Saudi diplomats: the Egyptian military, Israel, the financial sharks of Dubai, the Egyptian Trotskyist leftists, the realist politicians of the United States, and even Russia acted as a united anti-Ikhwank-anti-Qatar front. In 2013, Morsi was overthrown by this extremely broad coalition, and the Muslim Brotherhood was defeated.

This effectively ends the Qatari intrigue in the Middle East. But this episode is important for another reason: Saudi Arabia then demonstrated to the whole world its ability to use external forces, among which, when the Arabs needed it, were the United States and, in certain episodes, Russia.

The current President of Egypt Al-Sisi, by the way, receives money from Saudi Arabia (as, incidentally, before that Morsi received money from Qatar), and as they say, he who pays the money calls the tune. Of course, there can be no talk of any independent policy for Egypt now.

Saudi Arabia’s main competitors in the Middle East today are Iran and Turkey, and the main axis of confrontation directly in Syria is certainly the Saudi-Iranian axis, which is further complicated by Turkish intervention.

It is usually said that Iran supports Damascus simply because it supports the Shiites in the fight against the Sunnis. Everything, of course, is much more complicated. For example, calling Yemeni Zaydis Shiites can be a stretch, but Alawites are generally representatives of a religion that cannot, strictly speaking, be considered Islam (I’m afraid that only representatives of the dedicated Alawite religious elite will agree with me on this in their hearts, ukkal, but not the uninitiated ordinary Alawite masses, jukhhal). And in Shiite educational institutions, until quite recently, they taught that a Shiite who shakes hands with an Alawite is obliged to undergo a certain purification rite before praying. I witnessed this myself.

But the Iranians showed miracles of wisdom in diplomacy, managing to forget the old ritual contradictions and creating a very broad coalition of movements that had not been considered Shiism for a very long time and which, due to external threats, are ready to join virtually anyone, forgetting the old differences.

By creating an “anti-Wahhabi” coalition, Iran pursued a very specific goal: to strengthen its position in the Arab world and create a counterbalance to Saudi Arabia.

Allies were needed, which Iran found primarily among the colossal Shiite community of Iraq, the Shiite majority population of Bahrain, in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia itself, Lebanon - a country of minorities where no group is a majority at all, the Houthis of Yemen and, of course, the Shiites, Alawites and generally non-Sunni Syrians, who for the most part in the current situation are on the side of Assad.

Also on the side of Iran is the abnormally strong Lebanese Hezbollah, which at one time withstood direct confrontation with the most powerful militarily power - Israel, which was once capable of defeating several Arab states that were many times larger than it in six days. Hezbollah is one of the few forces in the region that supports the Assad regime and the Syrian Shiites sincerely, out of a sense of duty to its loyal allies. Largely because they found themselves in an extremely difficult situation, but, of course, also to fight for self-preservation, realizing that the fall of the Assad regime could catastrophically undermine the position of the Shiite community in Lebanon.

In general, many local residents, not without some reason, consider Lebanon and Syria to be one country. In the event of the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Lebanon, the Sunnis would definitely strengthen, which is absolutely unacceptable for Hezbollah, so the decision to support the Syrian president was the only possible one for this most powerful fighting force in Lebanon.

But you still need to assess Iran’s strengths sensibly: having scattered groups of non-Sunni minorities as allies, achieving total dominance in the Middle East today is unrealistic. However, it is quite possible to create a tangible counterbalance to the regional dominance of Saudi Arabia, which is already a significant success.

Turkey's main interest in Syria is the Kurds, and for this reason its gross interference in the affairs of its neighbor was inevitable. At the same time, it would seem that Turkey’s absolutely illogical and barbaric first intervention in Syria on the side of Assad’s opponents was associated primarily with an attempt to strengthen its position as a regional leader, which Turkey claims on a par with Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It is important that there was no extraordinary tension between Turkey and the Assad regime before the Arab Spring, but in 2012 the Turks carried out a fundamentally incorrect political analysis, believing, like the rest of the world, with the exception of some experts, that the fall of the Assad regime is literally a question several days or at most weeks. Well, ignorance of the specifics of Syrian political culture took its toll.

It seemed to everyone that if several districts of the capital were occupied by the rebels, then the regime would inevitably come to an end. The Turks were preparing to divide the spoils and intervened, hoping to grab something from the remnants of Syria, ahead of Saudi Arabia in this. But the regime still did not fall.

And, of course, Turkish politicians could not help but take the chance to advertise themselves by supporting the Turks living on the northern border of the country. However, the important task now, as in 2012, is to wait for the collapse of Syria and grab our piece of the pie. The Turks cannot allow Syria to be divided between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Although now the task of preventing the unification of the Kurdish lands into a single belt, which would generally take Turkey out of the “Syrian game”, has almost come to the fore for Turkey, and also raised the question of creating a Kurdish state, which could not but stimulate there is already an active movement for Kurdish independence in Turkey itself. In order to prevent the unification of the two Kurdish enclaves of Syria into one, the Turks are quite ready to enter into confrontation with IS* and occupy IS-controlled territories - the main thing is that the Kurds do not have time to occupy them.

Quite often, events occur in the Middle East that, if you think about it, do not correspond to the interests of Russia, the United States or Europe, but we are accustomed to looking at the East precisely through the prism of the interests of the West, not paying attention to the interests of macro-players in the region itself. The problem is that many of the events that seem inexplicable to us often fully correspond to the interests of the Middle Eastern powers.

Russia is acting in Syria at the invitation of Assad. The Americans invited themselves. And most often it turns out that through the hands of the United States, local actors who are dividing spheres of influence are trying to achieve their own goals.

The Americans probably began to guess about this, but if so, then now they can no longer just up and leave Syria. This would mean a complete loss of face. Therefore, they are forced to help Middle Eastern players divide Syria among themselves, hiding behind their own national interests, which the United States, of course, does not have in Syria.

Now, for example, they are doing a good job of playing along with the interests of the Syrian Kurds, among whom, by the way, a party of openly leftist orientation dominates, as a result of which American special forces often have to conduct combat operations in special clothing with almost communist symbols...

What's really happening in Syria. First, in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, the Assad regime is consolidating its power after months of fighting with rebels. “Battles,” as happened in Aleppo at one time, are nothing more than a war crime: Russian and Syrian planes continuously strike civilians and civilian infrastructure, both night and day. No one in the world will even mention what is happening during these “battles.” Southern Damascus is under ISIS control (an organization banned in Russia - editor's note). There is no doubt that they will be the next target of total destruction and murder.

Secondly, it's already underway and a huge flow of refugees from areas close to Damascus to northern Syria will increase in the near future. The Assad regime is encouraging Sunni citizens to leave their places and move to the north of the country. Russian forces provide the ability to move this flow.

Context

Russians won't stop halfway

Will Russia be able to shoot down American missiles in Syria?

Trump tweet on Syria rocks stock markets

Where is our “Thank you, America”?

Fourthly, these days new borders of Syria are being formed: the Turks are in the north of the country (except for one Kurdish enclave), nearby is the large enclave of Idlib, which is controlled by Islamic rebels receiving Turkish patronage. This is approximately 15% of Syrian territory. In northeastern Syria, the Kurds, who are supported by the United States, hold power. This is almost 30% of the country's territory. There is a lot of oil and gas in this area. Hezbollah has taken control of mountainous areas in western Syria. In the Golan Heights, Israel maintains its interests. Formally, Assad controls 50% of Syria. However, he is not the real owner. They are Russia and Iran.

Fifth, former US President Barack Obama ignored the genocide that took place in Syria, and thereby opened the gates of this country to Russia. Original sin lies on it. Is Trump repeating the policies of his predecessor? On the one hand, he wants to escape responsibility and abandon the Kurds, who did the “dirty work” for the United States in defeating ISIS. On the other hand, it is difficult for him to ignore the use chemical weapons and limit yourself to minor actions. What will he decide? We don't know yet.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editorial board of InoSMI.

The situation around Syria in recent days creates a feeling of an approaching Apocalypse. And this feeling is diligently fueled by experts, looking back in fear every now and then at the shadow of the Third World War that they have seen. The gray lips of analysts, among whom, as usual, there are quite a few couch potatoes, whisper: the world is sitting on a powder keg.

Of course, the tension of the situation is very reminiscent of the events of the 60s of the last century. And columnist Dave Majumdar talks about this, for example, in his publication for the National Interest. But at the same time it is also more dangerous: for last decades In the United States, the experience of “interacting with another power” has been lost, but the habit has appeared of looking down on other states, expecting the immediate execution of any decree coming from Washington.

Today everything is different, of course. The theater of military operations also changed. At the center of events is Syria, whose fate Washington, and with it its loyal allies, really want to decide in its usual manner. At any moment they are ready to launch a full-scale operation against Syrian government forces.

The legitimate Syrian government is supported by Russia and Iran. This causes tense anticipation in the world of a possible direct clash between Russian troops and the armies of the West.

On the night of April 10, an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was held, the topic of which was the state of emergency in the Duma. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said Washington would respond to the attack.

The UN Security Council meeting has not yet led to anything. For now it is suspended for consultations on draft resolutions on the investigation of what happened in the city of Duma. Before this, Russia proposed a resolution to send an OPCW mission there. The day before, the Swedish delegation introduced a similar document. The draft resolution proposed by Russia did not receive support from the UN Security Council. For its part, Russia vetoed the American resolution.

After this, US Permanent Representative to the UN Nikki Haley called on Security Council members to vote against Russian version or abstain.

"Our resolutions are similar, but there are important differences. The key point is that our resolution ensures that any investigations will be truly independent. And the Russian resolution gives Russia itself the chance to select investigators and then evaluate their work," she said she, adding that “there is nothing independent about this.”

What do the US themselves offer? In fact, to establish a special “chemical WADA” under its own leadership.

While spears are breaking in the UN Security Council, Washington is again playing its game according to a scenario that has already been tested in the Syrian crisis, and they did not even bother to rewrite it.

Let's remember April 2017. The Syrian opposition claims a chemical attack allegedly carried out in the north of the country, in the settlement of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government forces have been named as the perpetrators of the attack, but in response they strongly deny the accusations and place responsibility on the militants and their patrons.

An investigation into the chemical attack has not yet been conducted, and no real evidence of the guilt of the Syrian authorities has been presented. However, three days later, on the night of April 7, Trump almost single-handedly decided to launch a missile strike on the Syrian military air base of Shayrat. According to the Pentagon, a total of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from US Navy ships and submarines.

And even after this raid, despite the fact that official Damascus has repeatedly offered all possible assistance in investigating the events in Khan Sheikhoun and ensuring the safety of a group of experts during their visit to the Shayrat base, where ammunition with chemical weapons were allegedly stored, the experts did not visit Syria no objects suspected of being linked to a chemical attack in Idlib province.

And now, a year later, the situation is repeated almost exactly like a carbon copy. Again, accusations of chemical attacks - now two.

The White Helmets organization (this notorious organization again!) reported that in Douma, controlled by the Jaysh al-Islam group, a chemical attack on April 7 killed 70 people and injured thousands. According to them, bombs containing sarin or chlorine were dropped by Syrian Air Force helicopters. Let us note this point in the margins - the T4 and Dumeir helicopter bases in southern Syria, in light of this accusation, may well become targets of a US strike.

In the meantime, a day later, in the Syrian province of Homs, the government airfield "Tifor" (T4) was attacked. The Russian military said the airstrike was carried out by the Israeli Air Force.

The United States declares its confidence that in the Syrian Duma it was used Chemical substance, however, they cannot yet say exactly which one, but Bashar Assad and Russia are to blame for this, which “did not control” him.

Donald Trump takes the floor again and says that within 48 hours he will decide what the US response will be. And how the American military knows how to respond is well known...

Journalists from the presidential pool manage to ask Trump a question: does he blame Putin for what is happening in Syria? "Yes, maybe (he is responsible). And if he is (responsible), it will be very, very tough," Trump threatened. “Everyone will pay for this, he will pay, everyone will pay,” the US President said. By “everyone,” of course, we mean Russia and Iran.

And all this - against the backdrop of repeated warnings from the Russian side that the militants being squeezed out of Syria, as well as the parties supporting them (they were not named out loud, but it was clear who they were talking about) were preparing provocations of this kind.

Provocations with the use of chemical weapons and new, stronger US strikes on Damascus began to be talked about seriously after the start of a military operation by the Syrian army to liberate Eastern Ghouta from terrorists in the suburbs of Damascus.

The West did not pay attention to the fact that in early March they announced that they had discovered a laboratory for the production of chemical weapons in a territory liberated from terrorists. locality Aftris, on March 13, the Syrian military found a laboratory and a warehouse with toxic substances in the settlement of Shefonia.

The Russian Ministry of Defense and the Syrian government denied reports of a chemical attack in Duma, calling them fake and a provocation. Chapters Western countries They didn’t believe Russia. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson recalled the unfulfilled Russian commitments of 2013 - to ensure that Syria renounces the use of chemical weapons and completely destroys them on the country's territory.

And this despite the fact that back in 2014, Syria’s entire chemical arsenal was removed from the country under the control of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Now almost everything suggests that the conflict in Syria is about to move from the cold to the hot stage. Reuters experts, all as one, report Washington’s plans to strike the Russian Khmeimim airbase in Syria. And the White House itself stated that the Khmeimim airfield is the starting point for bombing in Eastern Ghouta in violation of the truce.

In addition, Trump’s unpredictability - either his statements about the need to withdraw American troops from Syria, or the outbreak of new round escalations around the Syrian problem could ultimately lead to the fact that the President of the United States, amid a worsening domestic political crisis around himself, could “drag America into war.”

The parties considered various options actions, including a massive strike, exceeding in strength the attack on the Shayrat airbase in April 2017. It is clarified that none of the leaders of the three countries has made a firm decision on this issue.

British Prime Minister Theresa May told Trump that London needed "more evidence of a possible chemical attack in Syria before it could join in striking the country. Thus, May refused to participate in the “quick retribution,” she found out.

On April 10, French President Macron said that if a decision is made on a military strike on Syria, the main targets will be the chemical facilities of the Syrian authorities, the strikes will not be aimed at allies of the Syrian government or specific individuals, and the final decision on a possible forceful response to the “chemical attack” will be accepted in the coming days.

And this question has already become a subject of discussion for experts: what objects could be targeted by the United States and its allies? Could this be Assad's residence, located remotely from residential buildings? This option may look like a “slap in the face” to the Syrian leader. During a massive raid, air defense forces will not be able to cope with air targets.

Various sources report that NATO naval ships armed with more than six hundred SLCMs (sea-launched cruise missiles) are concentrated in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Let us recall that three operations to invade Iraq and one into Afghanistan began with a cruise missile strike from the above-mentioned waters.

What does such a concentration of forces mean? There is only one thing: intervention in Syria can begin just a couple of hours after receiving the corresponding order. And the world saw what the result of such a massive missile and air strike could be in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. the main objective- destruction of important infrastructure and suppression of the resistance of the defenders.

By the way, in 2016, information appeared that the United States and NATO were already preparing a similar operation for Syria, but did not dare to implement it.

While in different offices and on different levels deciding what tomorrow might become, there is still an opportunity to look at it from the outside. According to some analysts, Syria today is the only place, where Russia is trying to extinguish the “enthusiasm of warmongers.”

And it seems to some, apparently, that this is the permitted place for “war games,” and that’s why everyone is playing.

As the NeVrotik Telegram channel writes, “someone is fakely hysterical about a “chemical attack”, someone is shooting as part of their local-regional tasks, someone is rattling secondary signs of sovereign greatness. The hubbub at the UN is again about “red lines” . It’s about to begin. The world, therefore, is on the verge. However, ours have everyday work without hysterics. Why such frivolity? Because this is a media imitation. everyday problems. It’s just that the words “war” and “Russian crimes” are the most clickable, which gives the maximum PR effect.

And the pictures of aircraft carriers that are sailing so beautifully for a decisive battle with the terrible Assad are absolutely hysterical. In this picture it would be desirable to shoot at Damascus. But it's scary. Because there are real Russians there, and not a propaganda version for the average person. But the Russians don’t order us to fire. You can actually get screwed. Drama. Therefore - a heroic imitation.

Another thing is that in the heat of frenzied imitations, a monkey can actually foolishly do something wrong with a grenade pin. History, alas, knows such examples. But protection from fools is also provided for in combat plans. For now, put aside the panic."

So, really, we need to put aside panic, and just carefully watch how the cheeks of the “Western partners” continue to puff out. And try to understand - “what does the coming day have in store for us?”

Today is the end of the “48 hours” that Trump gave the world to think about. And all these 48 hours, the hysteria that started - remember we wrote about this - continued to unfold? - in Salisbury, UK. Then it was just a trial balloon. The US media reported the names of congressmen who support the strike on Syria with all parts of their bodies, and meanwhile, the US Navy strike group, led by the aircraft carrier Harry Truman, has already left its permanent deployment site in Virginia for the Mediterranean Sea with “unknown targets.”

The entire Western press is already writing that “the international community demands a decisive response, although the number of victims of the attack in the Duma cannot yet be determined.” But just yesterday it looked different - “activist groups report deaths, but it has not yet been possible to confirm the video and statements.” Uncertainty is replaced by “exact knowledge.” Again, no one is going to wait for the investigation to end - it's too long! But I want to act right “here and now”!