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After More Than a Month, Russian Flotilla Remains Stalled off Tartus

Tartus
Sparta and Sparta II in holding patterns off Tartus, January 19 (MarineTraffic)

Published Jan 19, 2025 5:43 PM by The Maritime Executive

Commercial maritime traffic at the Syrian port of Tartus is picking up again under the new management of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which overthrew the government of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in December However, Russian military cargo ships remain stalled off Tartus' harbor, where the Russian Navy has maintained a base since the days of the Cold War. 

HTS would have reasons to restrict Russian access. Russia helped the Assad government fight HTS (and other rebel groups) for 13 years, and the Russian Air Force has long been accused of indiscriminate bombing of rebel-held civilian areas. In the final days of the regime, the Russian government helped Assad to flee into exile ahead of HTS' final advance, ensuring that he would not face trial for alleged war crimes. 

HTS has so far refrained from reprisal attacks against  Russian forces, but the Russian military has pulled back to two key bases on the coast - the Hmeimem airbase and the Tartus naval base - in preparation for an apparent evacuation. Frequent cargo aircraft flights in and out of Hmeimem suggest that high-value equipment is already being extracted from that location. 

A large assortment of vehicles from the Russian operation in Syria were pulled back to the base at Tartus in the closing days of the war, but are all still stacked in storage yards at the pier. Open-source intelligence estimates suggest that laid end-to-end, this collection of mobile equipment would tail back over a kilometer of roadway; several of the trucks appear to be components of the S-400 system, a high-quality air defense radar and missile launcher system that costs an estimated $500 million to produce. The S-400 is in high demand in the Ukraine conflict. 

The Russian Navy's Mediterranean Flotilla - which called Tartus home for decades - fled during the rebel takeover, and it remains at sea after more than a month. Satellite imaging and AIS show that two well-known military cargo ships, Sparta and Sparta II, are still staged offshore despite weeks of rumored negotiations over access. 

Imaging obtained by analyst MT Anderson shows that three merchant ships have pulled in opposite the Russian section of the harbor, suggesting signs of renewed commercial activity - but the military piers on the Russian side remain devoid of traffic. The timeline for the flotilla's presence off Tartus is not indefinite, and the ships will eventually require fueling, provisioning and spare parts. Unconfirmed rumors of breakdowns have already been reported, and the flotilla's last known submarine left the Mediterranean earlier this month.