Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Legbiter]

It's unfair for the monkeys, to be honest.

Yeah I meant no disrespect to the noble simian order. 

Nor the tarsiers.

[The Minsky Moment]

Wow.
Didn't expect any movement there. I thought the regular opposition was basically beaten now and just held on sort of in a few fringe places.

Assad basically lost control of the north of the country.  The Kurds took control of much of it and Turkey intervened to keep the Kurds out of the rest, giving control to these motley Islamists.

But the issue isn't so much how weak the opposition is but how weak they are compared to government forces. Aleppo is isolated in the northern part of the country, surrounded by anti-government forces and far from the regime center in Damascus. There is basically one line of communications running from Damascus through Homs and Hama.  In the Civil War, Assad was only able to reassert control because of massive Russian assistance and thousands of Hezbollah fighters.  Now the Russians are busy in Ukraine and Hezbollah has been flattened by the IDF.  That leaves regime forces, and if we assume Assad keeps his core loyalists nearby in Damascus, that doesn't leave much to hold down things in the north.