There is a queue at the borders, thousands of Syrian refugees are returning to their homeland (video)

Syrian rebels are negotiating with President Assad's cabinet chief on how to keep the country operational during the transition, while Russia is trying to preserve its bases.

Thousands of people are already heading home writes euronews. The rebels said their leader Ahmed al-Shara, known as Abu Muhammad al-Julani, met in Damascus with prime ministerwho headed the Assad government. According to representatives of the rebel coalition, the negotiations are dedicated to political changes in the country.

Task number one is to maintain the operating mode of government institutions during the transition period. Previously, the media wrote that US and UK may expel Hayat Tahrir al-Sham the main link of the anti-Assad coalition, from the list of terrorist organizations.

Lines lined up at Syrian border checkpoints queues of refugeesnotes AP, which want to return to their homeland after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime. The number of people wishing to enter the country numbers in the thousands, especially on the borders with Lebanon and Turkey.

In Syria itself, people are standing guard outside prisons, security services and courts, hoping to receive news of loved ones who were arrested or went missing under Assad. According to Amnesty International, At least 13,000 Syrians were killed in prison between 2011 and 2016.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reportsWhat Russia is negotiating with the new Syrian authorities to maintain 2 military bases. Anonymous sources in Moscow, Europe and the Middle East said negotiations were under way for Russian troops to remain at the Tartus naval port and Khmeimim air base.

The naval base is the only Russian hub in the Mediterranean Sea. The airfield is used to support Russian operations in Africa. A source in the Russian Federation reported:

The Defense Ministry in Moscow believes it has an informal agreement with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the former al-Qaeda offshoot that led the offensive to overthrow Assad, that it can remain in Syrian bases. But the situation could still change amid instability in Syria.”

At the same time, the publication was unable to immediately verify this information from representatives of the transitional government of Syria. The collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria effectively ended the 49-year base lease that Russia received in 2017, two years after Putin sent his military to support Assad's forces.

According to ISW, the loss of military bases in Syria could seriously undermine the Kremlin's ability to conduct operations in Africa. This will weaken Russia's position in Libya and sub-Saharan Africa, and also call into question its influence over African authoritarian regimes.

Edition BB.LV notesthat the rescue of Bashar al-Assad cost the lives of more than half a thousand Russians. Until recently, Moscow lost many elite professionals, while the Syrian military simply fled.

Since 2015, at least 543 Russian military, intelligence officers and mercenaries of the Wagner PMC have been killed in Syria. The estimate is given by the BBC publication, the calculation was made using open sources. The data is not complete—many losses are not disclosed. Among the dead were officers and privates of elite special forces units, including Alpha, Special Operations Forces, GRU and Airborne Special Forces units. At least 20 military pilots and navigators are known to have died. Of the known casualties, 346 served with Wagner.

The last time Russian sources reported the death of Russian special forces in battles in Syria was in late November, during the start of a rapid offensive by anti-government forces against positions under the control of the Moscow-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, it is not yet clear where the most loyal to Assad, the 25th elite special forces division of Syria, unofficially called the “Tiger Force,” commanded by Hussein al-Hassan, one of the most loyal generals to Assad, has gone.

She may have gone to the coastal city of Latakia, where there is still a Russian military presence. Apparently, there are no longer any fighters left in Syria from the Lebanese Hezbollah, which was one of the main military allies of Bashar al-Assad – according to various reports, they also went to the borders with Lebanon and Iraq.

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