Rebels’ success in Syria is a humiliation for Putin – no matter how Kremlin spins it

Russian fighter jets were quickly deployed to launch airstrikes against the rebel groups who rose up from northwest Syria a little more than a week ago.

But as the rebels swept into Damascus on Sunday morning, the skies across Syria were clear but for a private jet thought to be carrying the president.

The Kremlin, it appears, had no plan to save Bashar al-Assad once his soldiers melted away. Instead, it has been quietly withdrawing its own forces from Syria.

First, its three frigates, a corvette, a submarine and an auxiliary ship were withdrawn from its port at Tartus under the cover of a naval exercise.

Now, Russian military bloggers are reporting that Russia’s warplanes based 75 miles north at the Khmeimim air base are also being withdrawn.

“We’re leaving,” said Fighterbomber, a Russian military blogger with close connections to Russia’s Air Force. “The upper headquarters have effectively stopped military operations and are negotiating corridors.”

Hanna Notte, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called it an embarrassing failure.

“In recent years, Russia has always blamed blunders and embarrassments on Ukraine and its Western supporters,” she said. “It can try to do the same with Assad’s fall but the rhetorical gymnastics won’t work. It cannot distract from this being a defeat.”

Putin, alongside Iran, had been Assad’s biggest backer, effectively turning Syria into a Russian vassal state.

Only in July, Putin had welcomed Assad to the Kremlin saying that he was “delighted” to host his guest, considered a global pariah for slaughtering thousands of men, women and children.

The two men shook hands and smiled warmly at each other with Putin clearly enjoying Assad acting as the servile regional leader who had come to pay his respects.

Putin came to Assad’s rescue in 2015, first launching massive air strikes against rebels, then sending Wagner mercenaries to back up Assad’s military and finally ordering regular Russian soldiers to deploy to Syria.

But with the rebel’s lightning-fast capture of Aleppo, Hama, Homs and now Damascus in the past couple of weeks and the collapse of Assad’s army, the Kremlin appears to have decided that it had seen enough.

Various think tanks have estimated that Putin has been spending £2 million every day keeping his military in Syria. Several hundred Russian mercenaries and soldiers have also been killed in Syria but the war in Ukraine is now Putin’s priority and he may have ordered that not a single missile or warplane could be spared to defend Assad.

Donald Trump, the in-coming US president, appeared to catch the sentiment of the Kremlin’s shifting strategy towards Syria when he wrote in a Tweet that Assad’s “protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer”.

Kremlin propagandists have appeared stunned but determined to shape the narrative around the collapse of Assad’s regime.

Russian news bulletins have blamed the collapse on a wider Western plot to undermine Russia. They have also stopped describing Syrian rebels as “terrorists”, instead calling them “armed formations” – a sign that the Kremlin has accepted their victory and is preparing to negotiate.

Vladimir Solovyov, the face of a major daily Kremlin propaganda news show, blamed chaotic “Anglo-Saxon policies” for Assad’s collapse but the usually unflappable Margarita Simonyan, head of a swathe of Kremlin media groups, appeared shocked.

“Militants in Damascus. TV centre captured. Criminals released from prison. Airport not working. What a gloomy morning,” she said.

However, the Kremlin and its propagandists spin the collapse of Assad’s regime, it will have major implications for the Kremlin’s strategies in the Middle East and also in Africa.

The Russian air base at Khmeimim was both a prestige piece of military real estate for the Kremlin in the Middle East and an important force projection point that housed sophisticated Russian fighter jets.

As for the Tartus naval base, the Kremlin has understood its strategic importance since 1971 when it was originally built by the Soviet Union. Putin ordered it to be strengthened in 2012 and again after his 2015 intervention in Syria. It became Russia’s only reliable naval “repair and replenishment” centre on the Mediterranean Sea, vital for the Kremlin to operate at long range.

And this was critical for Putin’s plans in Africa. From Tartus, he could supply his forces in Libya and West Africa, where Russia has been challenging the West, with weapons and other kit.

Mark Galeotti, an honorary professor of Russian studies at UCL, said on his weekly podcast ‘In Moscow’s Shadows’ that abandoning the Tartus naval base would have “serious knock-on effects” for Russia’s operations in Africa.

And the collapse of the Assad regime may also have deeper implications.

Prof Galeotti said that the Russian system was far more inflexible now than it was before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, more vulnerable to hard-to-predict “black swan events”.

“What we are seeing in Syria is absolutely the flapping of the black swan’s wings,” he said.

This is a sentiment already being picked up by Ukrainian commentators. They used the collapse of the Assad regime to mock Putin.

Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian MP, said: “First, regimes fall very slowly, and nobody believes they are collapsing. And then, regimes fall fast.”

But analysts also warned that the shock of the rapid collapse of Assad’s regime may also impact the prospects for peace in Ukraine.

Encouraged by Mr Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky has said that a negotiated deal with Russia may be the best way to end the war, but the collapse of Assad’s regime may harden Putin’s still-uncompromising position.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russia analyst, said that Putin had been “shaken” by the collapse of Assad and would now be less inclined to “demonstrate flexibility” in Ukraine.

“The war in Ukraine has, to some extent, cost him Syria,” she said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/08/rebels-success-in-syria-looking-is-humiliation-putin/

Austria prepares to deport Syrian migrants after Assad regime falls

BRUSSELS — Austria has announced plans to deport Syrian migrants following the fall of the country’s dictator Bashar Assad to rebel forces after 13 years of civil war, while Belgium, France, Greece and Germany are pausing Syrian asylum applications.

“I have instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly return and deportation program to Syria,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told Austrian media, without clarifying which migration statuses would be targeted. Some 100,000 Syrians live in Austria, according to the country’s statistics agency.

One day after Syrian rebel factions, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Kingdom — took Damascus, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands are using the success of the rebels to revise their migration policies, with all six closing their doors to asylum seekers. The U.K. has also said it will stop processing asylum applications from Syrians.

The decisions to revise the asylum policies come as anti-immigrant far-right parties have surged in popularity across the European Union in recent months. Germany, for example, faces snap elections in February, with far-right parties currently performing strongly in the polls.

Refugee rights and aid organizations cautioned that the decision to halt asylum applications comes too soon, pointing to continued fighting in parts of Syria and questions around political stability.

“With significant uncertainties and concerns remaining for Syria’s transition and its future, we call on all countries where Syrians are living as refugees to uphold the right to asylum, as well as the principle of safe and voluntary return,” said the International Rescue Committee’s Imogen Sudbery, senior director for Europe advocacy.

In less than 10 days leading up to Sunday, Syrian rebel forces ended decades of rule by the Assad family, which has run Syria since a coup in 1970. More than 4.5 million Syrians have made their way to Europe since Assad’s crackdown on protests and dissent in 2011 amid the Arab Spring, which led to a long, bloody civil war during which 600,000 people were killed.

Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said it will freeze asylum applications for more than 47,000 Syrian nationals, a spokesperson for BAMF told German media. Syria was the top country of origin for asylum seekers in Germany this year, according to BAMF.

On Monday, Greece put a hold on processing 9,000 Syrian asylum applications, a senior government official, who was granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive matter, told POLITICO. The official added the government will decide on Friday whether to stop processing applications from Syria completely.

Belgium also revealed to POLITICO that the applications of more than 3,000 Syrians have been put on hold.

“We decided today to stop handling Syrian asylum applications for the time being,” a spokesperson for Belgium’s Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS) said.

Other countries are also now considering ending asylum for Syrian applicants.

An official from France’s Interior Ministry said it will seek “to put a stop to the avalanche of appeals on asylum applications from Syrians.” They are, the official added, “working on a suspension of current asylum applications from Syria.”

Even before the fall of the Assad regime, however, European countries reported they were struggling to accommodate Syrian nationals.

In 2015, more than 1 million Syrians made their way by land and sea to Europe at the height of the civil war in the country. Since then, millions have settled in Europe, unsettling politics in Germany, Italy and Greece. Cyprus paused asylum applications from Syria in August, saying it was struggling to cope with the “mass arrival” of migrants.

In October, some EU countries, led by Italy, pushed to normalize ties with Syria in order to facilitate the deportation of migrants. Assad, who held power for 25 years until fleeing to Moscow with his family, has been accused of torture and of using chemical weapons on his own people.

With the ouster of Assad, Europe must now deal with HTS, which is considered a terrorist group by many Western countries, including the United States and the U.K. (which confirmed the government will pause asylum claims from Syrian citizens late Monday).

“The Home Office has paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims whilst we assess the current situation. We keep all country guidance relating to asylum claims under constant review so we can respond to emerging issues,” a U.K. Home Office spokesperson said.

On Monday the EU’s executive arm announced the bloc won’t engage with HTS “full stop,” said its spokesperson Anouar El Anouni, raising questions as to how countries will reconcile their new migration limits with the EU’s policy toward HTS.

“As HTS takes on greater responsibilities, we will need to assess not just their words, but also their actions,” Anouni added.

Several politicians from Germany’s center-right CDU party have spoken out in favor of returning many of the country’s 800,000 Syrians to their homeland in the past 24 hours.

At a Greek government briefing Monday, spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said Greece hopes for the smooth return of Syrian refugees to their homes. “The return to democratic normality makes us be cautiously optimistic, to expect the possible return of many refugees, people who suffered due to the situation in Syria,” Marinakis said.

https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-deport-syria-migrant-bashar-assad-regime-fall/

Daniel Penny Found Not Guilty in Death of Jordan Neely on Subway

better read article from link at bottom for moar pictures

Marine veteran Daniel Penny was acquitted by a Manhattan jury Monday in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely – a lightning-rod case that cast a light on the mayhem plaguing Big Apple subways.

Jurors cleared Penny, a 26-year-old Long Islander, of criminally negligent homicide after the fatal caught-on-camera encounter on an uptown F train last year sparked fierce debate about mental illness, public safety and vigilantism.

A suited-up Penny, who remained stone-faced for much of the four-week trial, broke out a huge smile as his not guilty verdict was read out – prompting both applause and anger inside the courtroom as the high-profile case came to an end.

Penny “finally got the justice he deserved,” one of his lawyers, Thomas Kenniff, said while celebrating with him at a bar in downtown Manhattan just hours after the verdict.

“I’m not surprised in the sense that Day 1 we knew that we believed he would be exonerated because the evidence overwhelmingly supported that.”

The verdict, which followed more than 20 hours of jury deliberations, came after the more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed by prosecutors last week after the 12 jurors — seven women and five men — deadlocked on that rap.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – who quickly faced calls to resign for bringing the case against Penny in the first place — said he respected the jury’s ruling and insisted prosecutors “followed the facts and the evidence from beginning to end.”

“It really, really hurts,” Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, said after the verdict. “I had enough of this. The system is rigged.”

Over the course of the four-week trial, defense attorneys painted Penny as a hero who was “fully justified” when he took down Neely – a 30-year-old troubled homeless man who witnesses said was menacing others and making threats – on an uptown F train on May 1, 2023.

They questioned, too, whether there was sufficient evidence that the chokehold caused Neely’s death – arguing he died from a mix of schizophrenia, drug use, a genetic condition and the struggle with the Marine vet.

Prosecutors tried to convince jurors that Penny was “criminally reckless” and went “way too far” while holding Neely in the chokehold for roughly six minutes – even after he appeared to stop moving on his own.

After watching footage of the fatal encounter more than a dozen times and hearing testimony from 40 witnesses, including terrified straphangers, jurors ultimately found there wasn’t proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Penny wasn’t justified in his actions. Penny could have faced up to four years behind bars if convicted of the lesser charge, and up to 15 on second-degree manslaughter.

“I think the jurors all put themselves in that subway car, heard the fear of the passengers and identified with it — and rejected the criminalization of the actions Mr Penny took in the face of clear danger,” Thomas J. Curran, a former assistant DA in Manhattan, told The Post.

“This entire incident was a tragedy all around. The social infrastructure our city maintains to support and aid troubled persons like Jordan Neely clearly failed him. Mr Penny will forever have the tragic death of Mr Neely as part of him and his life. But, the tragedy that was the death of Mr Neely does not mean that a crime occurred. Trying to make it a crime was a mistake from the start.”

Arthur Aidala, a former Brooklyn prosecutor turned criminal lawyer, speculated that the verdict boiled down to the term “reasonableness.”

“Was it reasonable for Penny to act the way he did to have the fear that he did, for himself or a third party, regarding self-defense,” Aidala said. “And I guess once they took manslaughter in the second degree off the table, they pretty swiftly reached a verdict regarding criminally negligent homicide.”

News of the verdict, meanwhile, sparked an immediate reaction across the Big Apple – and the rest of the country – as some lawmakers claimed the DA’s office politicized the case and tried to turn Penny into a villain as crime spirals on the streets and underground.

“There are people in the [DA’s] office who are quietly relieved that he was found not guilty,” a source inside Bragg’s office told The Post. “You can’t say they are happy because someone did die, but they don’t think he was tried because he committed a crime, but rather because of politics which should never happen.”

Others, including Mayor Eric Adams, argued the case highlighted a broken system that failed Neely and others suffering from mental health issues or drug dependency.

“Jordan should not have had to die, and, I strongly believe as I’ve stated from day one, that we have a mental health system that is broken,” Hizzoner said when asked if the verdict was a reflection of New Yorkers being fed up with the system.

“New Yorkers have always been tired of things that allow people who commit violent acts to be part of a revolving door system,” he said.

https://nypost.com/2024/12/09/us-news/daniel-penny-cleared-of-all-charges-in-jordan-neelys-death/