DEBKAfile
June 20, 2013
Just one day after the G8 Summit ended in the failure of Western
leaders to overcome Russian resistance to a resolution mandating
President Bashar Assad’s ouster, Moscow announced Wednesday June 19, the
dispatch to Syria of two warships carrying 600 Russian marines. They
were coming, said the official statement, “to protect the Russian
citizens there.” Russian Deputy Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Gradusov
added that an air force umbrella would be provided the Russian
expeditionary force if needed.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the pretext offered by
Moscow for sending the force thinly disguised Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s intent to flex Russian military muscle in response to the
delivery of Western heavy arms to Syrian rebels – which DEBKAfile first
revealed Tuesday, June 18.
Putin was giving the West due warning that if they persisted in
arming the rebels any further, a Russian troop landing in Syria would
take place in the guise of an operation to evacuate endangered Russian
nationals.
Some 20,000 Russians live in Syria. In former stages of the conflict,
they were given the locations of assembly points should Moscow decide
to lift them out of the war-torn country. The evacuation of Russian
citizens would in itself dramatically denote the expansion of the Syrian
conflict.
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