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It's Tuesday, 17 December. Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. We begin in Syria, where the Russian military appears to be

conducting a large-scale withdrawal, ending over a week of speculation about whether they would

stay or leave. Then we'll turn to Russia, where

Ukraine's security service is claiming responsibility for the high-profile assassination of a Russian

general right in the heart of Moscow. But first, our afternoon spotlight. We'll begin with an update

on Russia's troop presence in Syria, as major questions exist over whether the Kremlin will lose their strategic foothold in the Middle East in the wake of Putin-ali Assad's overthrow.

As we discussed on last week's PDB, the lightning offensive that brought Islamist rebel militants to power just over a week ago presents a direct threat to the Kremlin's

strategic military assets in the region. While the Russians have been attempting to negotiate a

settlement with the rebel group HTS over the past week in order to keep their military bases in post-Assad

Syria, well, so far, the discussions with the new regime have borne little fruit.

Given how involved the Russians were in propping up Assad and the amount of Syrian blood they

...