...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...said on Monday "the main part" of Russian armed forces in Syria would start to withdraw, and instructed his diplomats to step up the push for peace as UN-mediated talks resumed in Geneva on ending the five-year war.
Syria announced
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
had agreed on the "reduction" of Russian forces in a telephone call with Putin. Western diplomats urged caution and the anti-Assad opposition expressed bafflement, with a front man saying "nobody knows what is in Putin’s mind."
The Kremlin also said Putin and Syria leader Bashir al-Assad agreed on the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria in a phone call.
Russia’s military intervention in Syria in September helped to turn the tide of war in Assad’s favor after months of gains in western Syria by rebel fighters, who were aided by foreign military supplies including U.S.-made anti-tank missiles.
Putin’s announcement - made without any advance warning to the United States - dropped out of the blue.
At a meeting with his defence and foreign ministers, Putin said Russian forces had largely fulfilled their objectives in Syria. But he gave no deadline for the completion of the withdrawal and said forces would remain at a seaport and airbase in Syria’s Latakia province.
"The task that was set before our defence ministry and armed forces has as a whole been completed and so I order the defence ministry to from tomorrow start the withdrawal of the main part of our military contingents from the Syrian Arab Republic," Putin told Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in televised comments.
Putin also asked his foreign ministry to intensify Russia’s role in brokering a peace deal in Syria.
The Russian leader said Moscow’s work in the country had created the necessary conditions for the grinding of the peace processor.
The Russian ambassador to the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
said Monday that Russia’s decision to begin withdrawing from Syria will help Moscow’s push to reach a political settlement.
"Our diplomacy has received marching orders to intensify our efforts to achieve a political settlement in Syria," Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told news hounds ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Syria.