Source: The Saker

The past two weeks have been rich in military developments directly affecting Russia.

Syria:

1) Russia has announced that she will transform the Khmeimim airfield into a full-fledged military base with a permanently deployed task force.

2) Russia will deploy her heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser (often referred to in the West as an “aircraft carrier”) Admiral Kuznetsov to the eastern Mediterranean to to check the combat capabilities of the ship and its strike group and to engage, for the very first time, the state-of-the-art Ka-52K Katran helicopters.

The Ukraine:

1) Following the failure of the Ukronazis to infiltrate saboteurs on the Crimean Peninsula ,which President Putin called “stupid and criminal”, Poroshenko has now ordered a reinforcement of his military forces on border with Crimea and eastern Ukraine and placed its military on its highest alert.

2) The authorities in Kiev decided not to accept the credentials of the new Russian ambassador to the Ukraine.

3) President Putin declared that in this context, negotiations with Kiev are “pointless”.

While not directly connected, all of these news items point to a possible military escalation which could result in Russia having to engaged her military in combat operations in Syria, Crimea and Novorussia. Thus is makes sense at this point to review the Russian options in all these theaters of war.

The Syrian theater:

There is a great deal of misunderstanding about the Russian military options in Syria. Just as the major Russian military intervention which was initially expected failed to materialize (the actual Russian intervention was very limited in both size and time), the reinforcement of the Khmeimim airbase will not result in a major strategic shift in the regional balance of power. A couple of reminders:

 

First, the Russian naval base at Tartus is not really a “naval base” at all. It is a port which the Russian Navy has been using, but it lack the capability to dock large ships and it is not defended in a way a normal Russian military base would be. In fact, the Russian refer to it as a “пункт материально-технического обеспечения“ or “material-technical supply point”. It is possible, even likely, that in time Russia will expand and reinforce Tartus, but for the foreseeable future Tartus will not be a major military outpost for the Russian Navy.