In Related News...

 ... water is wet, fire is hot. 

Russia is outpacing the arms production of the entire EU after significantly ramping up its defense industry and despite Western sanctions, the bloc’s commissioner for defense and space, Andrius Kubilius, has said. Kubilius, a noted Russia hawk and two-time prime minister of Lithuania, was approved by the European Parliament last month as the EU’s first ever defense commissioner. In an interview on Friday with the RND media group, he called on the EU to significantly expand the production of conventional weapons such as artillery and infantry vehicles, as well as long-range and precision weapons amid what he called a Russian attack threat. “The Russians have expanded their arms industry to an unimaginable extent despite our sanctions,” Kubilius stated. Russia now produces “more weapons in three months than the entire European arms industry can produce, and in six months more weapons than the entire German army has,” he added. Kubilius also cited experts who, according to him, say that Russia now produces more tanks than it uses on the front lines in the Ukraine conflict.

I want to stress, that in the last few years, a very good man, who I will not name, because I respect him, no, he is not my acquaintance--was repeating ad nauseam that Russia "with the economy the size of Spain".  Sadly, there is no such profession as a "good man", but for most people in the US "intel" community it is worth learning that Russia's economy is the 4th economy in the world and, possibly, the third. I want to stress that GDP numbers circulating in the "intel" circles are crap invented in the combined West to hide its deindustrialization and financialization of  own economies. US industrial base was in steady decline for decades now and realistically, with the exception of automotive industry (granted with huge pure assembly from import parts sector) and aerospace with naval construction... well, that's about the most important US machine building sectors. 

Now, to Khmeimim and transport aircraft--it could be that Russians decided not to maintain the base anymore and will evacuate it. Once Assad government fell, and Syrians made a choice--what's the point, to support WHO? The main objective of defeating ISIS have been met by 2020 and if Syrians want to live in misery, Russia should not waste a single Russian live or ruble on them. Russia is not Soviet Union and doesn't do charity. Simple as that. As I stated--have patience, we will know in due time.