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The Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance has achieved a large progress in its operations against ISIS in the province of Homs.
On August 20, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) liberated the key held village of Humaymah, which had been controlled by ISIS near the Iraqi border. The SAA allegedly lost a bulldozer and an unknown number of fighters during the clashes for the area. On August 21, government troops continued operations in order to seize the T2 pumping station that remained that last valuable ISIS strong point in this part of the administrative border between the provinces of Homs and Deir Ezzor.
On August 20, the SAA Tiger Forces, backed up by Russian attack helicopters, liberated from ISIS the village of Taybah and the Maqbarah Mountain located at the Resafa-Sukhna road posing a real threat of creating the second ISIS pocket in the province.
On August 19, pro-government sources reported that warplanes of the US-led coalition bombed the Tiger Forces in Kadir north of Taybah. No videos or photos from the area appeared. However, even the airstrikes took place they didn’t prevent government forces from further advances against ISIS.
Pro-government experts believe that the SAA and its allies will be able to clear the entire area north of the Homs-Palmyra highway from ISIS within a month.
The Russian Aerospace Forces have destroyed a large ISIS military column heading to the area of the city of Deir Ezzor “to regroup and equip their last base in Syria”, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Over 200 ISIS members were reportedly killed and about 20 vehicles equipped with large-caliber weapons were destroyed.
On August 20, the Iraqi Army, Federal Police, SWAT forces and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) launched a large-scale operation to liberate the ISIS-held Tal Afar area in northern Iraq. The Iraqi military had deployed 40,000 fighters for the operation. According to the Pentagon, ISIS has about 2,500 members in and around Tal Afar. By August 21, Iraqi forces have achieved notable progress in the town’s countryside liberating over 12 villages and facing little ISIS resistance. The main fighting will likely take place inside Tal Afar itself.
Who is trying to push Medvedev as Putin’s succesor?
If this guy succeeds Putin, all of Putin’s hard work will be undone in a fortnight.
Medvedev is a 5th columnist, who will not hesitate to implement an Israel-first agenda that will see him deferring to Tel-A-Viv and Washington.
https://www.rt.com/politics/400370-pm-medvedev-closest-to-putin/
During his stint in office as president- with Putin as PM- Medvedev was instrumental in cancelling the S-300 deal with Iran and signing off on allowing NATO to establish a No-Fly-Zone over Libya, which resulted in Gaddafi’s death and the destruction of Libya.
Looted weapons from Libya was then sent to Syria to topple Assad and destroy Syria.
And I very much doubt he would have listened to the Iranians and intervened in Syria, if he had remained at the helm of the Russian government.
He would have done Israel’s bidding and allow Syria to be laid to waste.
Russia -and indeed the world- would rue the day Medvedev takes charge of the Kremlin.
I think Putin should do another term and then hand over to someone like Dmitryi Rogozin instead.
I don’t think you should worry too much about Rogozin or Medvedev for that matter. There is a replacement in the works and he has been groomed and his image very very carefully crafted for the last couple of years, in the Russian media at least (where it matters, of course :).
Not many people outside of Russia have heard of him, but he comes from the same ilk as Putin, the security services that is, the same group of people credited with saving the state at the end of the 90s.
His name is Alexey Dyumin. For a year or two he was spoken of as Putin’s successor and then all of a sudden this talk stopped.
His career is pretty intriguing. He graduated a Military university for Electronic Warfare (yes, there were such universities in the SU :) and served in such a unit during his time in the army.
Some quotes from Wikipedia:
In 1995, he served in the Russian Federal Security Service. Then – in the service of the Presidential Security Service (FSO unit). In 2007, Alexey Dyumin became head of security of the Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov.
In 2009, he wrote a doctoral thesis on the topic of “Political aspects of global regulation within the framework of G8”.
In 2012, Dyumin became the deputy head of the presidential security service FSO of Russia.
In 2014 Dyumin became the deputy chief of the GRU, Russian special operations forces, which has played a key role in the operation of the Crimea to Russia, what they say in the film “Crimea. The Way Home”. According to the newspaper “Kommersant”, Dyumin developed and performed the emergency evacuation of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to Russia, on the night of February 23, 2014. However, Alexey Dyumin himself, called it a myth and declined to comment.
Since 2015 – Chief of Staff of the Russian Ground Forces – First Deputy Commander of the Russian Ground Forces.
December 11, 2015 was promoted to Lieutenant General.
—–End of quotes—-
Then, in the beginning of 2016, a very interesting ” promotion” happened – Dyumin was appointed as acting governor of Tula region – a very important region where a lot of Russia weapons manufacturing and design facilities are located. In the middle of 2016, elections were held and he became governor with 84 percent of the votes.
And here is where a lot of the subtle suggestions come into view. Despite the role of the governors as typical “punching bags” being brought to Putin for a Q&A session in front of the national news when something in their region screws up, Dyumin is none of this. His image is very carefully crafted with 1-2 pieces of news per week for him as governor of Tula (positive of course) and several Saturday “specials” about him till now.
He is not as charismatic as Putin in personal charm and is serious most of the time. But is good-looking, young (with a short and easily pronouncable family name from a PR point of view), with good background and career and what is most important – obviously extremely loyal to Putin (in the positions he served at this is the most important quality) and a certain successor of his policies. His military background and closeness to Putin will be accepted well by the Russian voters for sure.
For the moment, Dyumin is being kept out of the bright spotlight, but in my opinion, should something happen to VVP or should Putin decide not to run in next year’s elections – then Dyumin is the man to watch. No wonder he is the goalkeeper in Putin’s hockey team (another subtly but well advertised position of his in the Russian media).
So forger about Medvedev (a clear puppet of VVP and it is quite funny to read as if anything depends on him) or Rogozin (loyal, useful, with good organizational skills, but too controversial reputation abroad, too impulsive and considered a “nationalist”).
In my opinion, it is Dyumin who is already selected to be next in charge either in 2024 or earlier. Such things are never left to chance.
PS. Dyumin is also a Hero of the Russian Federation, the highest honorary title of the RF. No info exists on when and why he was given this award.
And two fun facts from Wikipedia:
According to Dyumin’s own words, once he saved the President from a bear attack without killing the animal.
Dyumin is rumored to succeed Putin as President of Russia.
So, don’t worry, be happy ;)
Thanks for the info. Didn’t I hear that Putin had, or was considering, parting ways with United Russia in order to form a new party? I had thought this was plausible, and a good way for Putin to unlink himself from the old Medvedev “partnership,” now that he has sufficient popularity and backing to no longer need the oligarch’s man. I was thinking that perhaps the reason for Putin’s delay in announcing his plans to run for office again would be to allow him to maneuver at the last minute, before forces could be arrayed against him, to further free the government from the tentacles of the oligarchs and the Western/Atlanticist grip. Perhaps he would choose Dyumin as his new running mate.
Sadly I also predict there will be a major new offensive by Kiev in the Donbass. Porochenko is increasingly desperate and despised (even by his Nazis), and the US is eager to put Putin in another difficult position immediately before the elections (not to be meddling or anything…). A winter offensive is unlikely, so that means this fall or next spring. I think they want to again present Putin with the Catch-22 of taking a popularity hit for refraining from acting while Russians in the Ukraine are again being murdered, or a popularity hit for the fallout from the cost in lives and aid in overtly acting in the Donbass, together with the renewed knock-on world condemnation and yet more sanctions. My guess is he will chose the latter, though I’m sure would prefer to wait until after the elections.
US Air Force MQ-1 Predator Drone Crashes in Southeast Turkey
https://sputniknews.com/military/201708211056654765-us-air-force-mq1-predator-drone/
“An investigation into the cause of the crash is underway.
“A US Air Force MQ-1 Predator remotely piloted aircraft crashed at approximately 11:50am, local time today in Southeast Turkey,” the release stated.
The same model of Predator drone crashed in a field near Adana, Turkey on August 18, but that cause of that crash is still under investigation.”
Those “Russian hackers” are everywhere. ;-D
Mission accomplished: US bloody imperialists put foot on Syria for good
http://bit.ly/2uV2R5D
I think Rothschild’s dream of an AngloZio controlled “Kurdistan” – a Pipelinistan masquerading as a country – is premature. The countries which Rothschild controls – collectively know as FUKZUSA – would have to carve their new land of “Kurdistan” out of lands governed by Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Does the Man from Uncle still have his youthful muscle? Look at the present condition of Rothschild’s customary muscle men in team FUKZUSA: France is a military joke, UK is not much better, Zion couldn’t even beat Hezb’Allah, and the USA is still tenderly nursing its bloody nose from Syria. Where are the days of Sykes-Picot, cher ami, ou sont les neiges d’antan?
The zionazi-gay media got some new orders from tell aviv.
Charlottesville to Assad – latest witch hunt of the US war lobby
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/400409-us-war-charlottesville-assad/
“Soon after the identity of the man who was at the wheel of the car that ploughed into demonstrators in Virginia was revealed, reports began to circulate that James Alex Fields, Jnr had a picture of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on his Facebook page with the inscription ‘Undefeated’.
Got that? Fields was an Assad fan boy! That proves we’ve got to keep on trying to topple him! That was the conclusion we peasants were clearly meant to be drawing.
What we are witnessing is a third witch-hunt, which has strong parallels with the ’Reds under the Beds’ McCarthyite persecution of alleged ‘communists’ and ‘communist sympathizers’ in the 1950s, and the hysterical anti-Russian campaign of the last few years. The agenda now is to try and link far-right/neo-Nazi activists at home with ‘official enemies’ abroad in order to discredit the anti-imperialist movement and facilitate more regime-change wars.
In other words, the activities of all too obvious domestic far-right/neo-Nazis are being used to promote the cause of a different but more disguised form of fascism. The fascism that targets independent resource-rich countries in strategic parts of the world for destruction, and whose adherents don’t dress up in silly Halloween-style costumes, but who wear suits and have full Establishment approval.”
@vot talk: Like the man said, “Undefeated”.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9GjC5LUIAAtaN1.jpg
Latest developments:
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Taybah – al Sukhnah linked, therefore second pocket sealed, but still insecure. Only small numbers of ISIS inside pocket.
Once sealed tightly, the penultimate phase of the Syrian conflict, the storming of Deir Ezzor might begin.
The last act will be the crossing of the Euphrates and the liberation of the resource-rich left bank of the Euphrates, that some US paper tiger generals claim to be ‘their’ territory.
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Hama pocket shrinking rapidly. Rapidly shifting front lines tactics by SAA & allies leaves under-powered, under-manned ISIS with zero chance to meaningfully fight back.