The End of Assad? Syrian Rebels enter the outskirts of Aleppo for the first time since 2016

Not sure where you're getting the idea that the Russians will be sticking around.

They were only granted the use of military bases in Syria at the invitation of Assad. Assad is gone and the people the Russians are bombing are now widely accepted as being the people in charge. They certainly aren't going to be interested in doing a deal with the Russians.

The best case scenario the Russians have is that they will be allowed to evacuate in good order.

Theres as many shades of Islam as the 40 shades of green (more, probably) but they all have one thing in common. They are all Muslims.The further away from extreme Islam, Taliban / Isis etc. you get the more relaxed it becomes. I've eaten and drank with more Muslims than I care to count. And they matched me drink for drink, which proves that it was not their first session either. So it is with other things as well as drink. Sex? No problem! Meet a lady, marry her, sleep with her, and the next morning divorce her. But the one thing thats unavoidable is that you are and will remain a Muslim, because tom leave Islam is definitely Haram, with a very heavy price to pay for breaking that law. So he will feel more at home in an Islamic Country, especially with his wife and children. Not because of the reasons that I've outlined above, just to point out that theres great flexibility within Islam. And when you consider the barrel of snakes that is Putins regime, he may well feel safer amongst his co-religionists.

Apart from the humiliation to Russia, I don’t think this new situation really helps Ukraine.

From strictly military, not diplomatic point of view, Russia has no skin in the Syria war now, so can redeploy any forces there to other fronts, like Ukraine.

Assad has 40m worth of property in Moscow - he'll be grand.

If they have not left by the time HTS arrive, may God help them, because they wont be leaving in that case. They will be shown the same mercy that they had shown Syrians.. and that was none!.

I have a suspicion the success of this rebellion likely entailed backroom deals between Erdoğan, Putin, and the main rebels groups. Erdogan, knowing Russia has its hand full in Ukraine, could have given Putin an ultimatum.

It could be that Vlad decided to sell Bashar out on the condition that he gets to keeps his main base in Syria. The fact he has asylum in Russia could have been part of the deal. Of course there is no guarantee the Jihadists stick to any deal longer term. We can see how much faith the Israelis have in Jolani's claim to now be the moderate face of Islam by them bombing Syrian bases to smithereens.

I won't be shocked if the leader of HTS doesn't see the end of 2025.

It might help Ukraine indirectly. Russia declared in 2017 (or so) that they'll bomb any Syrian rebels to pieces, and were openly allied with Assad. But as they demonstrated in Armenia, and now in Syria, Russia as an ally is someone that can't be relied upon. Fewer nations might be interested in aligning themselves with Russia, or buying Russian weapons in the future.

They sell plenty AK47s 😁 Even US buys $hit load of them using arms dealers to give terrorists they support.

All bungalows 🤣

Like they say in jurrassic park "Life Drugs will find a way."

It's all part of the master plan.

Like how Sun Tzu Putin fooled us into thinking his war in Ukraine would take 3 days or tricked us into thinking Ukraine would be gone from Russian soil by October.

That's a really interesting clip, thanks for that. I must say it's not nearly as OTT as I had expected; there's obviously a spin on it, but a lot of it is pretty grounded, and even the spin reminds me of a lot of what was said to justify the US departure from Afghanistan and/or Trump's unforgivable abandonment of the Kurds.