A ship sent to evacuate Russian troops from Syria broke down near Portugal, Ukraine intelligence says

• Russia sent a ship to evacuate soldiers from its bases in Syria, per Ukrainian intelligence.
• But it broke down en route in the open sea near Portugal, Ukraine said.
• Russia is trying to secure a deal with Syria’s new leadership to keep the bases, per reports.

A ship sent to evacuate Russian troops and equipment from Syria broke down while in the open sea off Portugal, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

In a Telegram post on Monday, Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate said that the Sparta cargo ship’s engine failed and that the crew was trying to fix the problem while the ship was drifting in the high seas.

Since the fall of Bashar Assad, Syria’s longtime ruler, earlier this month, the fate of Russia’s two military bases in the country — the Hmeimim air base and the Tartus naval base — has been under threat.

Russia struck a 49-year lease with Assad’s government for the bases, which it has used since 2017 to project power in the Mediterranean and into Africa.

But Syrian rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, overthrew Assad earlier this month, after a rapid two-week campaign.

Last week, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there were “no final decisions” about Russia’s bases in Syria but that Moscow is in contact with “representatives of the forces that currently control the situation” in the country.

Earlier this month, Ukraine said the Russian Sparta and Sparta II cargo ships had left Russia and were heading to Tartus to transport military equipment from the Russian base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

The journeys required the ships to sail along stretches of European coastline to access the Mediterranean.

Russian state media said earlier this month that Syrian rebel forces now controlled Latakia province, where the Russian bases are located.

Images taken in mid-December by Maxar Technologies showed Russian aircraft still present at the base in Hmeimim, but warships no longer stationed at the nearby naval facility in Tartus.

Last week, analysts from the Institute for the Study of War said Russia was probably taking this “tentative” stance and removing some assets in case HTS decided to deny Russia a sustained military presence in Syria.

Obeida Arnaout, the spokesman for Syria’s new transitional government, told the Associated Press last week that Russia should reconsider its presence and interests in Syria.

“Their interests were linked to the criminal Assad regime,” he said.

“They can reconsider and take the initiatives to reach out to the new administration to show that they have no animosity with the Syrian people, and that the era of Assad regime is finally over,” he added.