Russian military cargo ships remain stalled off the Syrian port of Tartus even though the new management of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – which overthrew Bashar al-Assad in December – have restarted commercial maritime traffic at the harbor.
Considering Moscow’s long-term help for Assad government, HTS would have every reasons to restrict Russian access to the harbor, and per satellite imaging and AIS, Sparta and Sparta II, two well-known Russian military cargo ships, are still staged offshore after the Russian Navy’s Mediterranean Flotilla fled during the rebel takeover and remains there despite weeks of rumored negotiations over access.
🇷🇺Med Sea Flotilla🇷🇺
Sentinel 2📷 from 19 January 2025Busy outside the anchorage as what remains of the flotilla awaits approval to evacuate equipment, caveats apply but IDs as follow:
Admiral Grigorovich | Admiral Golovko | Ivan Gren | Vyazma | Skobelev | Sparta | Sparta II pic.twitter.com/riNrjOiUQR
— MT Anderson (@MT_Anderson) January 19, 2025
The Russian Navy has maintained a base in Tartus since the days of the Cold War but it seems that, in preparation for an apparent evacuation, the Russian military is pulling back to two key bases on the coast – the Hmeimem airbase and the Tartus naval base – although HTS has so far refrained from reprisal attacks against them.
As per media reports, “frequent cargo aircraft flights in and out of Hmeimem suggest that high-value equipment is already being extracted from that location.”
