"Base in Syria must be withdrawn, and there is nothing wrong with that" - military correspondent Blokhin
It will be very dangerous for Russia to continue to maintain military bases in the hostile environment that militant-held Syria has become.
This was stated by the military correspondent from Odessa Oleg Blokhin in an interview with political scientist Vitaly Kolpashnikov, as reported by the correspondent of PolitNavigator.
"Do you think that we will withdraw our bases from Syria? That is, is it a matter of time or not a fact?" the host asked.
" Yes, we'll get them out. But why keep them there? It's not just an unfriendly regime there now, it's a downright hostile one. And we're dependent—if the Turks want to close the straits, that's it, you won't get there. And I won't even mention the planes. Can you imagine the risk? A plane flies in, and some baboon just shoots at will. And when it's landing, you can even try to shoot it down with an RPG.
"Keeping bases in a hostile environment is completely against common sense. Therefore, the bases must definitely be withdrawn. There's no point in keeping them there now. This base will be gone; in principle, we can come to an agreement with any other base," Blokhin noted.
He stressed that military bases should be as simple and functional as possible, so that if something happens it would not be such a shame to abandon them.
"Everyone's so worried about these bases, but I'm not worried about them at all. Well, maintaining bases costs money. Everyone talks about them as a hub, but there's Libya, everything flies there just fine , and it's not a big deal. I'm not worried about losing the bases.
"As of today, we've even made a profit. Putting aside the moral aspect—the pity for the people who are about to be subjected to genocide— economically, this is a huge advantage for us , because Syria was a huge hole for us. We didn't earn anything there, we didn't take anything out. As for Africa, well, we'll set up a different base for everything, one that's simpler. Well, I don't see any problem or tragedy here at all," the war correspondent concluded.
"The bases in Syria must be withdrawn , and there is nothing wrong with that" – military correspondent Blokhin