Russian navy missile drill in Med set for dates of NATO summit, Putin’s talks with Trump, Netanyahu
The Russian navy has announced cruise missile-firing drills off the Syrian coast starting on July 11 and 12. The area between the Syrian coast and Cyprus will be off-limits to air and shipping traffic on those dates and on July 18,19, 25 and 26, according to a Notice to Airmen issued by the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The drills of Kalibr-NK cruise missiles will be conducted by around 10 warships of the Russian Navy’s Mediterranean Sea task force.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Russians have timed their drill to coincide with the two-day NATO summit in Brussels this week. Syria’s skies and shores will be closed to traffic in those days, which also fall four days before the July 16 Helsinki summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Putin, which will certainly cover the Syrian crisis. This closure will remove any outside obstacle for impeding the Russian-backed Syrian government takeover of Quneitra opposite Israel’s Golan border, after they wind up their ongoing operation for gaining control of the Daraa province and the Syrian-Jordanian border.
Israeli warplanes will also find it hard to operate over Syria during the second half of July, starting from the 11th when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sits down with President Putin in Moscow. Putin is planning to counter Israel’s complaints with a demand for Netanyahu’s acceptance of the forcible Russian-Syrian takeover of the Quneitra region on its border from rebel control, an arrangement the Russians hope to model on the still unfinished Daraa formula.
The ground for an Israeli concession on this point was laid on Saturday, when Israeli military sources tried deprecating the presence of Iranian and Hizballah troops fighting with the Syrian army in southwestern Syria by claiming there were just a few scattered among Syrian soldiers, not organized combat units. DEBKAfile challenges this claim. According to our military sources, Hizballah’s elite commando Radwan Force as well as pro-Iranian Shiite militias are fighting in Daraa under the command of Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers. It is not clear which high-placed Israeli sources are putting out this false narrative which could have the effect of weakening Netanyahu’s negotiating position at his meeting with Putin.
The Americans appeared to be in conciliatory mode ahead of the Trump-Putin summit: The US Navy command ordered the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier and strike force to sail out of the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, after conducting a joint exercise with the French Navy’s air force. French Rafale M Fighters landed on the Truman’s decks for joint drills with US F/A-18/F Super Hornets. As of Sunday, July 8, not a single US warship is to be seen between Syria and Cyprus. US jets can only now reach Syrian air space from Iraq or the Gulf.
much noise for Nothing . if cruise missiles are news things for russia they are not for the west!!!! there is Nothing new with that
^doesn’t understand the report/didn’t read it/more super man bollocks.
Lets hope that Bibi does not allow putin to force him to accept anymore crossed red lines. I seriously doubt russia would like a similar situation happening on one its borders – in fact I’m certain they would have already gone to war to prevent it.
I think that it’s a bad mistake to keep waltzing off to Moscow every time Putin wants to turn the screws, it shows weakness. Shit like this can be dealt with by a telephone call.
It looks like that America is not a good partner, even a cowardl.
War is coming, also too Europa.
Only they are blind there.
The good old days are coming back.Maybe a couple of weeks/months and the northern area will be back to normal ( pre march 2011).But be prepare for what is coming in the near future.Looking forward how the IDF will react/act r egarding RED lines
@pipo
I agree, Pipo,
For two reasons;
1 Putins generals are against these talks.(see earlier DEBKA article)
2 The generals have brought out their toys for a practice run.
If you seriously want to negotiate you do not do these things.
The drums of war are beating loudly.
@Pipo
But I do not agree with the coward thing. USA has some of the best resources.
Israel between S-400 and Kalibr-NK cruise.What to negociate in 11.09?Mediterranean sea-the russian lake.
The US 6’th fleet could bury Russian naval force in a matter of Hours. .Russian navy dont have the global reach to deal with the US naval power and Putin know it.
russia s400 or 1000 are worth nothing they are useless!!!!!!
Happy Nakba!
This really shows who calls the shots in Syria?
“…to remain at peace when you should be going to war may be often very dangerous…” – Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, 431 BCE
The alleged U.S. Navy leaving the Eastern Mediterranian sea is most likely misleading, or outright false.
Trump’s boss, Putin sent the order. US abandons Israel.
Perhaps behaving like a Russian vassal will probe to have been not the best of choices.
David didn’t open a bakery for Goliath.
“We will not allow . . .” rings hollow unless you do something about it.
A thousand “we will not allow . . .” while your enemies encircle you, burn your country to ashes and keep creating facts on the ground all around you while you rush every week to, seemingly at least, take orders from Putin, paint a picture of a pushover.
And all of it doesn’t bode well. At all.
Israel is being perceived as indecisive, full of self-doubt, apologetic, more worried about what the PM’s wife is doing with the help than surviving, deathly afraid of public opinion and by “public” I mean every Jew-hater in the world, a dilettante when it comes to fundamental decisions, putting too much into missile defense systems that won’t be much help when finally and for real TSHTF.
You have a leftist traitorous 5th column and a Judiciary and a LE apparatus that work AGAINST the country and very little seems to be done about it.
Your children and the IDF are being miseducated for leftist defeatism.
Too much waiting, too little deciding, too much hand wringing, too little putting the fear of God into your enemies heart.
Little by little being pushed into a situation that looks grimmer than it should be allowed to look.
Perception is a huge part of war.
Israel is being perceived as cornered and with few options of relevance and with no guts to put itself out of it.
There are few worse perceptions than the perception that you are afraid to hurt other people’s feelings. Most especially the people that hate you and want you dead.
This apparent desperation to be a Goody Two-Shoes at every step of the way.
The current Gaza circus should have been overwhelmingly solved during the first 48 hours. You should have put the pisslim dogs into submission. You win. They loose. What else is there? And every officer that answers “no” to an order you execute him. The lingering death of Israel’s right of self defense sends a horrible message to the world and to your enemies. The very simple and deadly message that you don’t have it in you. That one more push and you’ll fold. And so they’ll keep pushing. How does that help you?
What’s the world gonna do? Hate Israel? Maybe they will organize a boycott or something? Mmmmm . . . aren’t they already doing that?
It looks like the war is going to start July 18-19 or the 25th.
Netanyahu should NOT go to Moscow. Enough has been said and both side know their red-lines. This is not going to be settles with negotiation—only war and one side being defeated. Putin has lied repeatedly over Syria and Iran. Netanyahu has nothing to talk to him about.
Don’t worry. While Putin lies and backstabs with no qualms, Bibi is not naive.
The US Navy is not leaving the Med. There’s plenty of room for everyone. Russia is so far behind the USN in every technology that there is no basis in fact that the US will give in to Russia, or even give an inch. The Russian navy is inferior, particularly in its lack of a naval air. The Russian air force is utterly outmatched by the US Navy, and that does not bring into the picture the US Air Force.
Yes, it is fair to say Russian navy floats upright and they have a really nice paint job. As an extra, some of the larger boats are consecrated by himself the great Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia.
There are also some remaining challenges, as you have very well pointed out, but these will be completely and positively solved as decades pass by.
it is propaganda i dont know what russia can do even if it launches cruises missiles. !!!!! if there is a war with idf the plateform from those missiles are launched will be destroyed and missiles intercepted!!!!
Are you serious ? Russia v ISISrael……you will be destroyed for good….get your head out of your arse man !!
Hahhahaha yea Russia so big and bad… Please spare us…