Russian Airstrikes in Syria Put Peace Talks in Doubt by Liz Sly, Washington Post
Russia’s military intervention in Syria is finally generating gains on the ground for Syrian government forces, tilting the battlefield in favor of President Bashar al-Assad to such an extent that the Obama administration’s quest for a negotiated settlement to the war suddenly looks a lot less likely to succeed.
The gains are small-scale, hard-won and in terms of territory overall don’t add up to much, in keeping with the incremental nature of war.
But after 3½ months of relentless airstrikes that have mostly targeted the Western-backed opposition to Assad’s rule, they have proved sufficient to push beyond doubt any likelihood that Assad will be removed from power by the nearly five-year-old revolt against his rule. The gains on the ground are also calling into question whether there can be meaningful negotiations to end a conflict Assad and his allies now seem convinced they can win…
Comments
In some aspects this article reflects just how little is being accurately reported by MSM on what is ongoing inside Syria...while I read the author's articles often this particular article is way off base if one focuses strictly on the headline.....
If one follows the SWJ thread on Syria 2016 then one will see that in reality the Russian air strikes have not greatly impacted IS AND the 98% of the RuAF air strikes which are strictly focused at the FSA are in fact killing far more civilians that even FSA fighters.
What is interesting is the use of the Russian air strikes deliberately as a punishment against the Syrian civil society for their support of FSA and the other anti Assad forces AND the Putin deliberate use of starvation forced also by the RuAF air strikes on food storage, NGO aid storage centers, schools, churches, market places and fuel since it is the winter time in Syria either via air strikes and or sieges.
Even when the RuAF is used in direct ground support with tens of strikes supporting the Assad mercenary Shia army the mercenary army does not hold their hard won positions for long.
The fighting has with the advent of the heavy use of the TOW and other ATGMs evolved into a hard fought infantry war since the Assad armor advantage has largely disappeared and the anti Assad forces have evolved into a rather solid urban warfare resistance army since they are fighting in their own towns and villages and thus have the strength to keep fighting vs the imported fighters who run when hit hard as they are fighting for pay and Iran not for Syria.
What the author has failed to indicate is the high loses of Shia mercenaries, IRGC troops, Hezbollah troops and Iraqi Shia militia NOT including a bunch of killed IRGC/Hezbollah/SAA commanders and senior commanders nor the serious wounding of the IRGC senior commander who we have heard nothing about in over two months since a FSA TOW hit his SUV.
The ongoing peace discussions are in fact bogging down as the US is trying to force via creating a weapons shortage to the FSA them to compromise and the fact that Russian wants the three top anti Assad forces declared terrorists thus their inability to attend the Geneva talks.
PLUS the Russian MoD is so smitten with their own "victory disinformation" that they think/assume they can pound the anti Assad forces into submission.
Right now the SAA and their Shia mercenary army is barely hanging on and largely has lost most of what they had gained over the last 100 days.