At least 9 ships and 3 subs conducted exercises just off the northern coast of Syria. Why? Russia sent the ships and are somewhat allied with Syria, but certainly long time enemies of Turkey. Erdogan condemned it – a bit too close to Turkey. What is Putin up to? What is the back story? Brad Johnson says the situation is unfolding, so it’s not yet clear. Stay tuned.
Brad is a retired Senior CIA Operative and Chief of Station who is president of his non-profit Americans for Intelligence Reform. We hope you subscribe and we’d welcome your comments.
https://youtu.be/6mpPC3fVk90
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august 25th with brad johnson
00:04
russia has done military exercises off
00:08
the coast of syria you were saying
00:10
they’ve never done this before
00:12
usually these kinds of things are
00:14
signaling something
00:15
what do you think it’s signaling yes i
00:18
think very interesting and this is not
00:20
just
00:21
you know uh two row boats or something
00:24
like that they’ve got
00:25
at least nine ships and three submarines
00:29
russian navy so by russian navy
00:31
standards this is a fairly major
00:34
show force uh or or exercise naval
00:38
exercise
00:39
right off the coast of syria now uh
00:42
of course we know that russia is backing
00:44
syria and and
00:46
um and what’s going on there so there’s
00:48
a certain level of sense to be able to
00:49
do it there
00:50
kind of a show of strength with somewhat
00:53
of an ally
00:54
and keeping the assad regime alive and
00:56
well in syria
00:58
but i don’t think that’s the the real
01:00
reason for it and this was sharply
01:02
condemned by
01:03
none other than everyone’s friend and
01:05
buddy
01:06
uh president of turkey erdogan
01:10
and he came out and condemned this as as
01:12
you know russian aggression in the area
01:13
and that sort of stuff
01:15
shocking absolutely shocking that they
01:16
would do such a thing
01:18
and of course off the coast of syria
01:20
happens you know which would be
01:22
uh to the the coastline that is on the
01:25
west side of syria
01:27
that same section of ocean is on the
01:30
southern part of turkey
01:32
so they’re very near the southern coast
01:33
of turkey doing these exercises in the
01:36
on the
01:37
in the ocean there in front of of
01:40
syria so it is a very interesting thing
01:43
and a fairly large naval exercise
01:45
uh and i think it is in fact we’ve seen
01:48
a number of things in
01:49
say the last year year and a half that
01:51
russians been doing
01:53
uh to kind of try to keep erdogan under
01:55
control as we’ve talked about before
01:57
turkey and russia are have been um
02:01
essentially enemies of each other
02:04
for you know 200 years or 150 years
02:07
something along those lines they’ve had
02:08
at least like three major wars and
02:10
a number of skirmishes and so on so
02:12
they’re always
02:14
traditionally very wary of each so i
02:17
think this is pretty clearly
02:18
putin flexing a little bit of naval
02:21
muscle
02:22
under the nose of turkey interesting
02:26
that he does
02:26
that now why would he do that of course
02:29
that’s that element
02:30
remains to be put together here but
02:32
something is going on in the background
02:34
where putin deemed it a great idea
02:37
to flex this muscle uh in front of
02:39
turkey so that’s what we see going on
02:41
it’s a sign of something else
02:43
that’s happening in the background like
02:44
you say these naval exercises
02:46
aren’t accidents they do these things
02:49
for
02:50
a stated reason and they’re not going to
02:51
use the navy to attack syria they’re
02:54
already allied there so
02:56
who else could it be and of course the
02:57
only one around of any consequence right
02:59
there
02:59
that would interest the russian navy is
03:01
turkey so clearly a message to turkey
03:05
clearly flexing muscle for them uh the
03:07
the question is what is it on the back
03:09
in the background what’s the back story
03:11
that provoked this
03:12
maybe it’s just a a sign of russian
03:14
aggression that is consistent with how
03:17
russia does stuff they like to go tweak
03:19
the nose of people they view as an enemy
03:22
or a competitor so
03:23
it could be something as simple as that
03:25
uh we’ll see does erdogan
03:27
strike back in some way those sorts of
03:29
things i stay tuned i
03:30
i think there’ll be more coming out on
03:32
this one they’ve that is heating up just
03:34
that next little bit with turkey so
03:36
we’ll see where it goes
03:38
turkey’s certainly uh being quite
03:40
aggressive on a lot of
03:42
a lot of sides of that country so
03:45
more pressure is good thanks very much
03:47
brett
03:48
all right thank you
04:16
you
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Related material:
https://intelreform.org/2020/02/15/brad-johnson-on-turkish-moves-in-syria/
https://intelreform.org/2019/10/10/barry-webb-on-turkish-expansion-into-syria/
