Collateral damage from the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, its Russian ally is trying to save its military presence in the Middle East. While Moscow had deployed important naval and air bases in the country, in exchange for protection from the Shiite dictator, Russia is now forced to review its plans, and could choose Libya as a fallback solution.
The Moscow regime, which has already evacuated troops and weapons stationed for several years in Syria, is in the process of transferring advanced air defense systems to Libya, indicates the Wall Street Journalfrom American and Libyan sources. We do not know, however, if these components will remain, or if they will have to be sent back to Russia. Vladimir Putin also announced this Thursday that the Russian army had “taken out 4,000 Iranian fighters” from Syria during its withdrawal, at the request of Tehran.
Gateway to Africa
Moscow already has positions in Libya, via the Wagner militia’s relations with Marshal Haftar, whose Libyan National Army controls the east of the country. Libya is in fact in the grip of a civil war between various armed factions, which occurred a few years after the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The Wagner group, for its part, maintains agreements with the marshal, who made some of its members available to it. military installations for its operations in Africa.
Marshal Haftar is also demanding air defense systems from Russia and protection against certain groups supported by Turkey. According to the WSJMoscow would study the possibility of modernizing the Libyan port of Tobruk, in order to accommodate Russian warships, and would negotiate the use of the port of Benghazi.
Maintaining a presence in the region is indeed strategic for Russia, given the presence of the United States and NATO, which have military bases and ships there. The Tartus naval base and the Hmeimim military airfield in Syria have proven to be key infrastructure for Moscow to project its influence across the Middle East, the Mediterranean basin and as far as Africa.
Negotiations with HTC
If some analysts believe that Libya could not replace the loss of its positions in Syria, Moscow seems to be making it, at least temporarily, a stopover solution. Several Russian planes heading to sub-Saharan Africa have already stopped there in recent days, according to flight tracking site Flightradar24 and satellite images.
Russian officials are reportedly waiting to see if the main rebel group, the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham Brigades (HTC), having seized power in Syria, would be open to a deal that would allow Russia to remain in some of its key bases, says CNN from American and Western sources.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin assured, during his annual press conference this Thursday, that the fall of Bashar al-Assad was not “a defeat” for Russia. “I assure you that is not the case […] We went to Syria ten years ago to prevent a terrorist enclave from being created there, like in Afghanistan. Overall, we have achieved our objective, he said, recognizing however a “difficult” situation.