ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

While President Trump  insults his erstwhile foreign partners  in a colorful twitter tirade ahead of a G-7 (or rather, G-6+1) summit in Quebec, exposing the very real fragmentation of longtime western partnerships as the US cracks down on unfair foreign trade practices, a productive meeting between China’s “Emperor for Life” Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been completely overshadowed, as  Bloomberg  points out. The two leaders held their first meeting this year on Thursday ahead of the June 9 Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting  – an eight-member group led by China and Russia – which will be held in the port city of Qingdao. Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers. The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out. Look forward to seeing them tomorrow. 00:0

Nasrallah during a televised speech marking the international Quds Day, Via al-Manar TV On June 8, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to keep his forces in Syria as long as Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad wants it there. Nasrallah also warned that Hezbollah will not withdraw from Syria in any other way, even if the world unites against it. “We’ll be present in Syria for as long as we’re wanted there, as long as the Syrian leadership needs us in the field … Even if the entire world unites to take us out of Syria – we won’t leave. We won’t leave until the Syrian leadership tells us,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech marking the international Quds Day, according to the Israeli Ynet News. During his speech, Nasrallah stressed that his party entered Syria in the first place to confront “a major conspiracy targeted against Syria’s people.” Hezbollah leader also called on Israel and its allies to admit that they had failed to overthrow the Syrian president and his gover

A screenshot from the video According to a video released by the Russian media outlet Rusvesna, some units of the Russian Military Police are still deployed in the Damascus region of Eastern Ghouta, which was fully liberated from militants earier this year. Military police units provide security and assist in keeping the law and order in the area. Syrian security forces, assisted by the Russians, are conducting a security operation in the area in order to crack down the remaining cells of militant groups, uncover hidden weapon depots and to remove IEDs and mines.

Members of the Ukrainian armed forces ride on armoured personnel carriers near Debaltseve, eastern Ukraine, February 12, 2015. Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters The recent military escalation in eastern Ukraine  has drawn attention of the UN Security Council (UNSC). The UNSC found the situation in the region very tense and adopted a statement on June 6 encouraging all parties in Ukraine to recommit to a 2015 peace agreement. The statement also expressed a “grave concern” at deteriorating situation in the Donbass  region, where the conflict is developing. All 15 UNSC members including the US and Russia agreed on the statement, which was the first pronouncement by the UNSC on Ukraine since January 2017. The UNSC condemned “continuous violations of the ceasefire regime, especially the use of heavy weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements, responsible for tragic deaths, including among civilians. ” Last week, UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the UNSC that “the relative

Russia’s MiG-31 with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile. Photo: Aleksandr Shukhov On June 7, Russian President Vladimir Putin announce that all the recently unveiled state-of-the-art Russian weapons will be put into service in time addign that some are already adopted. The announcement was made during his annual Q&A session in Moscow. “The hypersonic air-deployed Kinzhal system – the missile which can travel at 10 Mach speed – is already used by our troops in the South Federal District,” the president said. “A laser combat system is in service as well.” The hypersonic system Avangard and Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) will be put into service in 2019 and 2020 respectively. “I don’t think that any other country will develop such weapon [as Avangard]. Naturally, it will emerge at some point, but, as I’ve said already, it won’t bother us, since we already have it,” Putin added. He also revealed that an nuclear unmanned underwater vehicle and cruise missil

A photo from the site Pro-government forces have uncovered an ISIS training camp for children, according to a video released by the Russian state-run news agency Sputnik. The military training base has been found in the eastern part of the province of Hama. A damaged armored military Humvee was also spotted at the entrance. According to Sputnik’s report, the camp included everything necessary for military training – obstacle courses, battle practice grounds and classrooms. A similar training camp for children was discovered in southern Damascus after government forces had liberated the Yarmouk camp area from ISIS.

FILE IMAGE: Desert Hawks Brigade members The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is papering to lunch a military operation to eliminate a small pocket of ISIS in the eastern al-Suwayda countryside, which includes the villages of Tell Sa’d, Tamutha, Ashrfya and Aura, the Syrian pro-government blog Muraselon reported on June 6. According to Syrian opposition sources, warplanes and attack helicopters of the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) carried out a series of airstrikes on ISIS positions in these four villages on June 5 and 6. Muraselon said that the pocket hosts hundreds of ISIS fighters who had withdrawn from their positions in the Yarmouk refugee camp and several districts south of the city of Damascus under an agreement with the Damascus government in late May. A military source told Muraselon that several unit of the SAA Republican Guard were deployed around ISIS pocket in the eastern al-Suwayda countryside during the last few days. These units will participate in the upcoming attack

Illustrative image On June 6, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) artillery shelled several positions of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies in the town of Khirbat Marata in the southwestern Aleppo countryside and in the district of al-Zahra west of the city. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said that the shelling was response to an attack of HTS on a position of the SAA in the area of Khan Touman on June 5. Back then,  the attack failed and the SAA managed to kill and injure 15 fighters of HTS . In related development, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out a series of airstrikes on positions of the al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group Horas al-Din in the towns of Urum al-Jawz, Bsheiriyeh and Ariha in the northwestern Idlib countryside. According to the SOHR, these airstrikes were a response to an attack of Horas al-Din on a position of the SAA in the area of Ard al-Wata in the northern Lattakia coun