The Telegraph: Russia Faces Disaster In Mediterranean

The loss of Tartus would collapse the Kremlin's influence in southern Europe and North Africa.

Syrian rebels led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, taking advantage of the weakness of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's troops and the Kremlin's distraction with the war in Ukraine, launched a major offensive on November 27 and liberated the city of Aleppo in just a few days.

The opposition's next achievement could be capturing the city of Hama. If this happens, the rebels will begin to squeeze the salient held by Assad's forces between the front line and the Mediterranean coast, which covers the entire coastline of Syria.

Russia's only base in the Mediterranean is in the port city of Tartus. Its loss would be a disaster for the Kremlin, writes The Telegraph columnist David Axe.

"The Russians know Tartus is in trouble. On December 3, commercial satellite imagery showed that all of the large Russian warships known to operate out of Tartus — three guided missile frigates, a diesel-electric attack submarine, and two lightly armed auxiliary ships — had unmoored from the port’s three large piers and sailed into the Mediterranean,” the author notes.

The war against Ukraine could thus cost Russia a huge influence in the Mediterranean. Moscow has maintained a presence in Tartus since the 1970s.

In 2017, Russia signed an agreement with the Assad regime to extend the Russian fleet’s presence in Tartus for 49 years, which also meant expanding Russian access to the port.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Turkey closed the Bosphorus Strait to warships, leaving Tartus as Russia’s only option for operations in the Mediterranean.

Russia no longer has many reliable and durable large warships. Most of the Soviet ships are out of order, and the Russian shipbuilding industry, strangled by sanctions, cannot produce new ships.

In such conditions, the Russian fleet is becoming coastal, increasingly relying on nearby coastal bases to supply itself with fuel, food and weapons.

The loss of Tartus will collapse Russia's influence in Southern Europe and North Africa. The only way for Russia to compensate for the loss of Tartus is to regain access to the Bosphorus, but as long as the war in Ukraine continues, this will not happen.

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