Turkish Forum

Tag: Tartus Naval Base

  • Top Russian spy’s body washes up ‘after swimming accident’

    Top Russian spy’s body washes up ‘after swimming accident’

    The body of one of Russia’s top spies has washed up on the Turkish coast after he disappeared close to a sensitive Russian naval facility in neighbouring Syria.

    By Andrew Osborn, Moscow

    ivanov
    Gen. Yuri Ivanov, 52, deputy head of GRU, the Russian military's overseas intelligence arm of Russian military, was found dead in mysterious circumstances

    Major-General Yuri Ivanov, 52, was the deputy head of Russia’s foreign military intelligence arm known as GRU which is thought to operate the biggest network of foreign spies out of all of Russia’s clandestine intelligence services.

    His badly decomposed body was found washed up on the Turkish coast by local fishermen earlier this month after he disappeared in the Syrian coastal resort of Latakia further south. The Russian army’s in-house newspaper, Red Star, did not report his death until last Saturday when he was quietly buried in Moscow.

    The circumstances of his death are reminiscent of a John Le Carre novel and have therefore fuelled theories that he may have been murdered in Syria and his body then thrown into the Mediterranean where it drifted for days.

    According to the Kremlin, he was on holiday in Syria and died in a tragic swimming accident. However, other reports have suggested he was on official business and the location where he is reported to have disappeared was only about fifty miles from a strategically vital Russian naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus which is being expanded and upgraded to service and refuel ships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

    The facility is Russia’s only foothold in the Mediterranean Sea, and Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, is known to be concerned that Moscow will use the upgraded facility as a base for spy ships and electronic espionage directed at the Middle East. The port is also close to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a terminal for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which is seen as a lifeline for Georgia, against whom Russia fought a short war in 2008.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7973346/Top-Russian-spys-body-washes-up-after-swimming-accident.html, 31 Aug 2010

  • Russians moving into Syria

    Russians moving into Syria

    Strategic alliance include fleet, missiles

    Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND.

    The coast of Syria, where Tartus is located

    Just as Russia has reasserted its power in the Black Sea, it now plans to make waves in the Mediterranean Sea by establishing a major base in Syria, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

    This decision not only will allow a permanent presence of Russia’s nuclear-armed Black Sea fleet in the Mediterranean, but it also offers the potential for future confrontations between Russia and Israel, as well as with the United States.

    The Russian navy has begun to upgrade facilities in Tartus, Syria, and already has backed this up by moving to Syria a flotilla of its powerful warships led by the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. The flotilla includes the Russian navy’s biggest missile cruiser Moskva and some four nuclear missile submarines.

    From 1971 to 1992, the former Soviet Union operated a naval maintenance facility at Tartus. It then fell into disrepair. Only one of its three floating piers remained operational.

    But the facilities now are being restored.

    “It is much more advantageous to have such a facility than to return ships that patrol the Mediterranean to their home bases,” said former Black Sea Fleet commander Admiral Eduard Baltin.

    The establishment of the permanent base also is viewed as Moscow’s response to the upcoming installation of U.S. missile interceptors along Poland’s Baltic coast at Redzikowo. Such an agreement was signed last month between the U.S. and Poland.

    Syria, meantime, also is considering a request from Moscow to base missiles in the country due to tensions between Russia and the West over its invasion of Georgia in the Caucasus.

    Russia would send in the surface-to-surface Iskander missile which Moscow says is capable of penetrating any missile defense system.

    With a NATO code name of the SS-26 Stone, the Iskander is a road-mobile system. It has a range of 300 kilometers, or 186 miles, giving Damascus the capability of striking Tel Aviv in Israel.

    Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin is the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

    Source: www.worldnetdaily.com, September 19, 2008