Russia’s statements on the creation of de-escalation zones in Syria run counter to the real intentions of further militarization and legalization of the ground troops, the losses of which is increasingly difficult to conceal for the Russian Defense Ministry.

The upgraded A-50, a Russian special mission aircraft, were captured by ImageSat International deployed at the Latakia Air Base in Syria. Photo by ImageSat International dated May 3, 2017.

On May 9, Fox News, referring to sources in the Pentagon, reported the shipment of twenty-one (it is a full-fledged artillery battalion) M-30 122-mm howitzer from Russia to the Syrian port of Tartus. The shipment of the weapons took place within a few days after the memorandum on the four “de-escalation zones” in Syria, adopted on May 4 at a meeting in Astana by the diplomats of the Russian Federation, Iran and Turkey. On May 8, Russia also introduced a draft of the resolution in the UN. In response to this step, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that the “de-escalation zones” proposed by Russia raise a lot of questions, for which there are as yet no answers. “The devil is always in the details,” Mattis said.

Read also: Who bombs civilians in Syria: profiles of 116 RuAF officers (infographics).

In the review from May 4, we have already suggested that Russia’s attempt to impose its rules on the “de-escalation zones” reinforces its plans for the legalization and expansion of the contingent of Russian ground troops in Syria. Recall that in 2015-2017, InformNapalm revealed servicemen of 18 Russian military units that participated in the ground operation in Syria:

• The Baltic Fleet: the 336^th Separate Marine Brigade (the 879^th Assault Battalion of the same brigade);
• The Northern Fleet: the  200^th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 61^st Separate Marine Brigade;
• The Black Sea Fleet: the 810 Separate Marine Brigade;
• Western Military District: the 27^th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, the 20^th Regiment of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection (TOS-1A), the 1^st Engineer Brigade, the 2^nd  Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division;
• Eastern Military District: the 200^th Artillery Brigade;

• Central Military District: the 21^st, the 28^th , and the 74^th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigades, the 7^th Tank Brigade, and the 120^th Artillery Brigade;
• Southern Military District: the 34^th Separate Rifle Brigade, the 7^th Military Base, the 291^st Artillery Brigade, and the 66^th Signal Brigade.

Read also: Russian gifts for ISIS: what was left behind in the abandoned military base in Palmyra.

According to Fox News, in the near future, Russia will ship additional SA-21 missiles for the S-400 air defense systems to Syria by sea. We believe that this shipment will go to Syria from Crimea, as it was in previous years. After its capture in 2014, Crimea serves as a key transit point for the “Syrian Express”, which supplies arms and equipment to the troops of Bashar al-Assad. In 2016, InformNapalm wrote about dozens of transport and launch containers for S-300 surface-to-air missile systems in occupied Sevastopol.

Translated by Svitlana Kemblowski

(CC BY 4.0) The information was prepared specifically for the InformNapalm.org website. An active link is required for reprint and use the material. The right to the full translation of the material into English and German belongs exclusively to the editors of InformNapalm.

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