Rebel advance in Syria threatens to unravel Putin’s previous triumph
The lightning advance of rebels in Syria and their rapid capture of the cities of Aleppo and Hama are threatening one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proudest achievements, his 2015 military intervention to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Almost a decade later, however, Moscow is embroiled in a massive land war in Europe and analysts question whether it has the resources to save Assad again, even as it continues to pledge support verbally.
“We are in constant dialogue with our Syrian friends, with Damascus,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday. “And depending on the assessment of the situation, it will be possible to talk about the degree of assistance that is necessary for the Syrian authorities to cope with the militants and eliminate this threat.”
At risk here is not just Russia’s prestige but its prized military foothold in the eastern Mediterranean region: The naval base of Tartus and, further north, the Hmeimim Air Base, both with 49-year-leases received after Russia’s regime-saving intervention.
Russia has maintained a significant military presence in Syria and stepped up its airstrikes in recent days, with human rights observers reporting attacks on civilian facilities including hospitals, schools, camps for displaced people and civilian neighborhoods.
But news on Thursday that rebels had driven Syria’s army out of the city of Hama raised questions about the Russian capacity to stem the rapid collapse of Assad’s military.
The Syrian regime’s military failures could see the two Russian bases cut off from the capital Damascus, analysts said, particularly if forces led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham continue to advance south to the strategic city of Homs.
In addition to using the bases to protect Assad’s fragile regime, they have also allowed Moscow to project its military power in the eastern Mediterranean and to claim a role as a world power with vital regional interests, challenging American supremacy.
Russia, however, has its hands full with its war on Ukraine, with Russia’s grinding advance in eastern Ukraine coming at the cost of massive casualties. Britain’s Ministry of Defense estimated that November was the costliest month of the war so far for Moscow’s forces, with an average of more than 1,500 killed or wounded a day.
It is also facing an Ukrainian incursion on its own soil since August that it is struggling to expel, now with the help of North Korean soldiers.
With Russia’s capacity to increase its military presence in Syria in question, analysts said Putin’s main priority would be preventing threats to the Hmeimim and Tartus bases, through military strikes to stem rebel advances or via pressure on Assad to negotiate a peace deal with Turkey, which backs some rebel factions and maintains forces in the north of the country.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Russian, Iranian and Turkish representatives may meet in coming days under the Astana Process, a platform that was set up by the three powers in 2017 to resolve the Syrian crisis and guard their regional interests.
While Russia has claimed its airstrikes have killed hundreds of rebel fighters in Idlib, Hama and Aleppo provinces, it did not stop the HTS fighters from first taking over Aleppo and then Hama.
Charles Lister, a Syria expert at the Middle East Institute, said that even during the war on Ukraine, Moscow never scaled its military presence back down, although the quality of Russia’s officer corps in Syria had declined.
“Russia retains exactly the same troop levels. They’ve conducted the same number of air sorties over Syria with the same geographical breadth that they did prior to the war in Ukraine,” he said, speaking on the Lawfare podcast.
What has changed, however, is the strength of the Iranian-backed forces in Syria, especially Hezbollah, which has been weakened by Israeli attacks in recent months and could no longer provide the necessary support to Assad’s own army.
Pro-Kremlin media and Russian military bloggers have blamed Assad for failing to create a strong professional army, even as the HTS built itself into a formidable, well-armed force.
“The Syrian government is demonstrating a complete inability to carry out reforms and find the necessary solutions. This applies to all areas, including the army. Since 2020, nothing has been done to improve the armed forces of the Syrian Arab Republic. They are in a state of half-disintegration,” Kirill Semenov, a Syria expert at the pro-Kremlin Russian International Affairs Council told the Vzglyad newspaper.
One factor, however, in favor of continued Russian support is the huge symbolic importance for Putin of the original Syrian intervention, which was his first major challenge to Western power outside the lands of the former Soviet Union, said Nicole Grajewski, a an expert on Russia and Iran in Syria at the Carnegie Endowment on International Peace.
“I think certainly Syria has been very central to Russia’s perception of itself as a great power,” she said adding that it came a year after then-U.S. President Barack Obama called Russia a “regional power,” which was taken as a major slight.
“It was one of the kind of exemplars that the military has used to show their effectiveness. And this was the first real show of [Russian] aerospace forces. It showed Russia’s ability to come in and serve as this alternative great power, contrary to the West,” she said.
Aleppo’s fall in a few days reversed one of Russia’s major achievements in the Syrian war in 2016 when it enabled Assad’s army, which had been on the verge of defeat, to finally take the whole city. It was seen at the time as a turning point in the war.
Grajewski said Russia, Syria and Iran were likely to be planning a counteroffensive because the rebels could pose a real threat to Russia’s Hmeimim and Tartus bases, particularly if they advance toward Homs.
“I just couldn’t imagine how humiliating and embarrassing it would be for Russia to have Hmeimim or Tartus overtaken by rebel forces,” she said. “I think that Iran and Russia probably are coordinating pretty closely right now to see what ground forces or militia they can pull together to … push back this opposition offensive.”
She noted however that HTS appeared to be much more competent than the rebel forces from 2016, “so it’s going to be difficult.”
Vladimir Pastukhov, honorary research fellow at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, wrote on Telegram that if Assad was defeated, it would be painful for Russia, and a setback for Moscow’s geopolitical ambitions since it would be difficult for Russia to find a new location for its crucial air base and naval facility.
Russia has used the bases as a way station for mercenaries headed to Libya and other parts of Africa, extending its reach into that continent.
Analyst Georgy Bovt, of the Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, said Turkey would probably benefit from the rebel advances, with Russia’s military tied up in Ukraine leaving it the main power broker now in Syria.
“Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who considers Assad his enemy, will benefit from the weakening of the regime and will be able to expand his influence in northern Syria,” he wrote on Telegram.
He said that Russia, Turkey and Iran had used the Astana Process to smooth their differences over Syria’s future, “but now the Turkish General Staff has torn up those arrangements.”
The situation in the Middle East also has Russian commentators claiming to see the hand of a familiar enemy, Ukraine, and accusing Moscow’s foe of being behind the rebel successes — a charge that Ukrainian officials have declined to address.
Even two weeks before the offensive, Putin’s envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, claimed that Ukrainian intelligence was assisting Syrian “terrorists” in a bid to damage Russia.
“We do have information that Ukrainian specialists from the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine are in Idlib, actively not only supplying unmanned aerial vehicles there through certain channels, but also training radicals in their manufacture and use, which is very dangerous,” he said.
Source » msn
