BICOM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will head to Moscow today for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The talks are expected to focus on the situation in Syria.

After a substantial military deployment in Syria to support the Assad regime, Russian troops have begun to pull some troops out of the region. Bloomberg reports that Mr Netanyahu is looking for assurances from Moscow that the Russian withdrawal won’t result in Hezbollah filling the vacuum, especially on Israel’s northern border in the Golan Heights region.

Some commentators believe that this fear is behind the Israeli Government’s recent focus on the Golan Heights. Nadav Pollak, an analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Bloomberg that Netanyahu wants to prevent shipments of advanced weapons to Lebanon through Syria and stop Hezbollah from building up its presence in the Golan.

Russia’s intervention in Syria led to Russian troops fighting alongside Iran and Hezbollah against Syrian rebel forces. Despite this, the Israeli Air Force reportedly struck at arms transfers to Hezbollah inside Syria including in Damascus itself – something that could only realistically have happened with coordination and approval from Russia.  A level of coordination was confirmed by IDF deputy Chief of Staff, Maj-Gen Yair Golan, who said that Israel worked hard to avoid negative engagements in the air, land and sea.

Maj-Gen Golan warned yesterday that a war between Israel and Hezbollah would be devastating, noting that Hezbollah estimated arsenal of 100,000 rockets and missiles represents “the most severe threat we’ve ever experienced before.” Maj-Gen Golan assessed that another conflict with Hezbollah would likely become a full-scale war because Hezbollah has integrated its bases into the civilian infrastructure “there is no other way to take out this threat without really creating large damage to the Lebanese infrastructure, to Lebanese houses and other civilian facilities.”

According to Israel Hayom, another major topic of discussion between Mr Putin and Mr Netanyahu will be Russia’s relations with Iran. After years of delays and over Israeli objections, Russia began to deliver the advanced S300 air-defence system to Iran last week. The system would make a future strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities much more difficult.