It's been a few days since I have provided an update to the current conflicts in these beginning stages of World War III, and much has happened within a very short period of time.
Let me outline the chronology of events first, before providing commentary.
As I previously reported, on November 11, 2024, Russia shocked the world by launching their new missile, the Oreshnik, into Ukraine which demolished a Ukrainian defense industry facility in Dnepropetrovsk.
There are currently no missile defense systems that can intercept these new missiles.
Four days later, on November 25, 2024, Russia issued a public statement that was quoted in the Turkish media calling for an end to Israeli airstrikes on civilians in Lebanon.
That same day, it was announced suddenly in the U.S. corporate media that a ceasefire agreement had been reached between Israel and Lebanon.
The next day, on November 26, 2024, Turkey publicly complained about new sanctions on Russia that the Biden administration had just implemented, that would affect Turkey's ability to pay for natural gas from Russia to get through the winter.
The day after this was published, on November 27, 2024, anti-Syrian rebel forces started a lightning fast military campaign that soon took over Aleppo, Syria's second largest city.
These forces then rapidly marched on Damascus, Syrian's largest city, this weekend, with the result that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has now fled to Moscow, allegedly bringing with him much of Syria's national assets to ensure a comfortable lifestyle for his new home is Russia.
Who exactly is going to run Syrian's government at this point is not clear, at the time of my writing this.
So those are some of the facts, and all of this has happened so rapidly, that it appears there is no scripted description of these events in the world's English media newsrooms at this time.
The perspective on what has just happened these past several days, will differ widely depending on which English news you are reading, as U.S., Russian, Arab, Iranian, and Turkish English news all have a different slant on what just happened in Syria.
In my opinion, Russia is probably the one who brokered this deal, especially considering the chain of events that started after they unveiled their Oreshnik missile.
However, while Russia may have been the driving force to allow this to happen, many sources believe it was Turkey who carried out the plans, and at this point, based on everything I have read so far, I tend to agree.
Yesterday, December 8, 2024, Turkish President Erdoğan reportedly said something I have never heard him say before in a speech, and as far as I could tell, this was first reported by the official Russian media outlet Tass.
He stated that there are only two world leaders left in the world, himself and Putin, as Erdoğan has been in office for 22 years, about the same amount of time as Putin has been in office.