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english.pravda.ru/news/russia/27-06-2013/124965-russia_tartus-0/Russian Defense Ministry rebutted reports on the withdrawal of Russian personnel from the sustainment center of the Russian Navy in the Syrian port of Tartus, the press service of the ministry said Thursday.
Defense Ministry officials said that Tartus was still an official base for Russian vessels in the Mediterranean and continued to perform its tasks. The Defense Ministry stated that the affirmation in the reports about the withdrawal of personnel of the sustainment center was extremely incorrect from the point of view of the actual situation.
It was said that there was no one single Russian military employed at the sustainment center in Tartus. The center is serviced by civil personnel only.
Russia not withdrawing its base from Syria's Tartus
english.pravda.ru/news/russia/27-06-2013/124965-russia_tartus-0/
All personnel withdrawn from Russian navy base in Syria - diplomat
Published time: June 26, 2013 09:43
Edited time: June 27, 2013 08:59
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister says all personnel had been evacuated from the navy resupply base in Tartus, Syria, adding that not a single Russian military serviceman remained in the country.
Mikhail Bogdanov made the announcement in an interview with the Al-Hayat newspaper. “Presently, the Russian Defense Ministry has not a single person stationed in Syria. The base does not have any strategic military importance,” the newspaper quoted the Russian official as saying.
Russian media have verified the statement and the business daily Vedomosti quoted an unnamed source in the Defense Ministry as saying that this was true as all military and civilian personnel had been evacuated from the Tartus base and there were no Russian military instructors working with the Syrian military forces. The source added that the withdrawal was prompted not only by the increased risks caused by the ongoing military conflict, but also by the fact that in the current conditions any incident involving Russian servicemen would likely have some unfavorable reaction from the international community.
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Russia withdraws its remaining personnel from Syria
Evacuation signals growing concern in Moscow about conflict between ally Bashar al-Assad's regime and rebels
Miriam Elder in Moscow and Ian Black, Middle East editor
The Guardian, Wednesday 26 June 2013 18.30 BST
Russia has evacuated the last of its personnel from Syria, including from its Mediterranean naval base in Tartus, in a move that appears to underline Moscow's mounting concerns about the escalating crisis.
Russian media reported on Wednesday that they had confirmed the evacuation with officials in the country's military and foreign ministry. But there was no official confirmation of a claim from rebel Free Syrian Army sources that a Russian plane had been shot down and its pilot captured in the western Aleppo area.
The effective closure of the Tartus base would be a significant loss, though a 16-ship naval task force is still in the eastern Mediterranean. The base is Russia's only foothold in the Middle East.
Neighbouring Cyprus has, however, made its ports available to the Russian fleet. Cypriot media have reported that the government may allow Russia to use its base at Paphos to host military aircraft.
News that Russian forces had pulled out of Syria came in an interview with Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy foreign minister, in an interview with the newspaper al-Hayat last week.
"Today, the Russian defence ministry does not have a single person in Syria," he said. He described Tartus as a "technical facility for maintaining ships sailing in the Mediterranean."
The Vedomosti newspaper quoted an unnamed defence ministry official as saying: "We have neither servicemen nor civilians in Syria any more. Or Russian military instructors assigned to units of the Syrian regular army, for that matter."
But Vedomosti said the decision to remove defence ministry personnel did not include technical experts employed by the Syrian government to train its army to use Russian-issued weapons.
Russia Today, the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel, said: "The withdrawal was prompted not only by the increased risks caused by the ongoing military conflict, but also by the fact that in the current conditions any incident involving Russian servicemen would likely have some unfavourable reaction from the international community."
Russia has been evacuating its citizens from Syria for weeks. Bogdanov said that about 30,000 Russians live throughout the country, some in rebel-held areas. The Interfax news agency reported that 128 Russians and citizens of other former Soviet republics left Syria on Wednesday on planes that had delivered what was described as humanitarian supplies the previous day.
Russia remains Assad's last major ally, alongside Iran. It has repeatedly blocked US-led attempts to sanction Bashar al-Assad's regime via the UN. Russia and the US failed to agree in talks this week on convening a peace conference in Geneva between the Syrian government and opposition.
The pullout from Tartus is unlikely to interfere with the delivery of Russian air defence and anti-ship missiles to Syria. Bogdanov defended the shipments of arms as legal and arranged under an existing contract. Asked when the deliveries would begin, he replied that that was a decision for the "supreme command".
The Guardian
^LOL.
Not that I support Bashar Al Assad the imbecile secular dictator (I do not support him), but this was very funny.
Does it actually ever dawn on the desert dwellers that the entire world merely sees one set of tribal desert dwellers killing off another set of desert dwellers?
These lot should abandon all backward, tribal, thiefdom/kingdom based desert culture and embrace Islamic Shariah for all the Muslims of the world for enduring peace and justice in the world.
Today, Russian Ministry of Defence asserted that the previous reports on the withdrawal of Russian personnel from the state's military base in Syrian Tartus are false.
"Yesterday's media reports on the withdrawal of Russian personnel from the Syrian port of Tartus are completely untrue," the Defense Ministry said in an official statement today.
Read more: english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_06_27/Russian-Defense-Ministry-denies-reports-on-military-withdrawal-from-Syrian-Tartus-7663/
Maybe they want to lets us think they do.
They could still have military there in Syrian uniforms to operate the weapon systems.
This way no one can blame the Russians.
Official distance is what they are doing.
Russia does not intend to close its Embassy in Damascus nor its base of technical support for ships in Tartus, Sergey Lavrov has stated today following the talks with Moroccan counterpart Saad ad-Din al-Osmani.
"All these are rumors, which are intended to prepare the ground for actions aimed at changing the regime," the Minister said.
Russia is just trying to sell some weapons before Iran stops pouring billions to Assad and he flees to Latakia.another proof that shows Russia is not supporting Syria because of the base, but it support Syria because it knows JUSTICE, it knows what the Syrian people want... Russia will never side with a losing side anymore...
Russia does not intend to close its Embassy in Damascus nor its base of technical support for ships in Tartus, Lavrov said.
english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_06_28/Reports-on-close-of-Russian-Embasys-in-Damascus-are-provocation-Lavrov-2762/
How do we know its done?are you serious..? do you think after evacuation if Russians remain in Syrian uniform , they wont pay the price from FSA? or you think Turk, US or eu won't find it out....? Russia is moving away cause they know what's going to come but they can't stop it.... That Shia Syrian lion can stand with Assad here but when he is done he's no more