Russia deploys aircraft, warships to retreat from Syria, Ukraine’s defense intelligence says. Russia can no longer sustain both an efficient defense industry and a stable economy, ISW says. Macron will talk with Tusk in Poland on meeting with Trump and Zelenskyi.
Russia deploys aircraft, warships to retreat from Syria, Ukraine’s defense intelligence says
After the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Russian forces are preparing to flee the country and are seeking cooperation with the rebel groups to withdraw. Russian soldiers are loading the remaining personnel, weapons and materiel on a convoy of military transport aircraft, the Main Intelligence Department of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
Several An-124 and IL-76MD are scheduled to fly from the Khmeimim air base in Syria to the Ulyanovsk, Chkalovsky and Privolzhskiy airfields in Russia, Ukraine’s defense intelligence said in a statement.
Russia is also sending more warships to its naval base in Tartus. The Sparta II bulk carrier and the Alexander Shabalin large landing ship were ordered to prepare to leave the port of Baltiysk.
More Russian large landing ships — the Alexander Otrakovsky and the Ivan Gren of the Northern Fleet, are headed to the Mediterranean, Ukraine’s defense intelligence said, adding that the Admiral Gorshkov and the Admiral Golovko frigates were also part of the operation.
Russia has begun removing weapons and assets from its naval base in Tartus. A few hundred Russian special operation forces have arrived there to secure a retreat. Russia counts on backing from the rebel groups to withdraw freely from Syria.
Russia is scrambling to establish contacts with Syrian armed factions it had dismissed as “terrorists”, now using a neutral or even approving rhetoric, Ukraine’s intelligence said.
Russia can no longer sustain both efficient defense industry and stable economy, ISW says
Russia’s mounting economic pressures stemming from the war, paired with widespread corruption, labor shortages, and inefficiencies in Russia’s defense industrial base, undermine its ability to effectively sustain the defense industry while maintaining economic stability, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in a recent report. The paragraphs below are quoted from the report.
Russia continues to face staggering costs required to maintain its war effort against Ukraine, with mounting economic strain, labor shortages, and systemic corruption threatening the sustainability of the Russian defense industrial base (DIB).
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reported on December 7 that Russia has spent over $200 billion on its war in Ukraine and suffered at least 700,000 casualties since February 2022, with recent losses averaging 1,000 soldiers per day.
The Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation reported on December 9 that Russia’s liquid assets in its National Welfare Fund dropped from $140 billion in February 2022 to $53.8 billion by December 1, 2024. The Center noted that Russia increasingly relies on Chinese yuan reserves and gold sales to cover its budget deficit and is committing a third of its national budget for 2025-2027 to defense spending, indicating an unsustainable prioritization of the war at the expense of economic stability.
Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov claimed on December 9 that corruption crimes, including bribery, increased by nearly 30 percent in 2024 over 2023, with Russian authorities having disciplined over 30,000 Russian officials for corruption violations in 2024.
Russia’s mounting economic pressures stemming from the war, paired with widespread corruption, labor shortages, and inefficiencies in Russia’s DIB, will likely compound the cost of Russia’s war and further undermine its ability to effectively sustain DIB operations while maintaining economic stability.
ISW has previously observed reports of similar trends and statistics in the Russian economy, indicating that Russia’s economic trajectory is unsustainable in the mid- to long-term and will increasingly strain its capacity to wage war against Ukraine.
Macron to talk with Tusk in Poland on meeting with Trump, Zelenskyi
French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Warsaw on Thursday to give a summary of talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi in Paris last weekend, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.
“The day after tomorrow, President Macron will be here. He will want to inform about the results of the Paris talks, where the meeting took place with President (elect) Trump and President Zelenskyi,” Tusk told a government meeting.
Later Tuesday he was meeting with Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union and opposition candidate for chancellor, who was returning from Kyiv.