The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launches a campaign of targeted air strikes in Syria. Its goal is to destroy as many weapons and as much ammunition as possible that could have fallen into the hands of Syrian resistance units after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime on Sunday, December 8, 2024.
The Israeli Air Force's strikes targeted armored vehicles, air defense systems, aircraft, missile stockpiles, and even Syrian Navy boats and ships, which were located in Tartus.
Read more: India Receives its Seventh Project 11356 Frigate From russia: One Can Take Eight Missiles Aboard
The peculiarity of the situation is that, apparently, the russian fleet has not yet left its base in the Syrian port of Tartus, and it is too early to talk about the withdrawal of russian ships.
These are the conclusions we can draw from the satellite image of Tartus as of the morning of December 9, 2024, published by OSINT analyst MT_Anderson.
This image shows that as of the morning of December 9, the Admiral Grigorovich frigate (Project 11356), the Admiral Gorshkov frigate (Project 22350), a submarine (Project 636.6) as well as the Kaliningradneft oiler were at least eight kilometers offshore in the port of Tartus.
We should also take into account the new message from the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. According to the report, russians are preparing a new "Syrian Express," but this time to evacuate their military and equipment from Syria for good.
Two dock landing ships of the Northern Fleet of the russian Navy have already been sent to the Mediterranean to transport the cargo. One landing ship from the Baltic Fleet and a Sparta II cargo ship from the Oboronlogistics company are also preparing to deploy.
Speaking of the remnants of the Syrian Navy that could have concerned Israel, we can focus on the following data. According to The Military Balance, as of the beginning of 2024, the Syrian Navy had one Soviet corvette of Project 159, 16 Soviet missile boats of Project 205, 6 boats of Iranian Project Tir, as well as 6 minesweepers and 3 landing ships.
In addition, the Syrian Navy had the P-15 Termit and P-35 anti-ship missiles, russian Bastion mobile coastal defense missile systems and Chinese C-802 anti-ship missiles.
Earlier Defense Express reported that Ukraine’s naval drones had shut down russia’s Syrian express in March 2024 and what it could means.
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