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full screen That was then – Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his then-Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad in the Russian seaside resort of Sochi in the fall of 2017, one of many meetings as their regimes deepened their cooperation. Photo: Michail Klimentjev/Pool Via AP/TT
Russia’s once-mighty forces are rumored to have fled, more or less head-to-head, during the last dramatic week in Syria.
But even if the development is a big nose for Vladimir Putin, the last word has not been said.
– Russia has a history of coming back from adversity, says expert Anna Borshchevskaya.
In connection with the fall of the Assad regime this weekend, Ukraine’s intelligence service stated, among other things, that “Russian forces are carrying out a hasty evacuation from Syria”, Ukrainian Euromaidan Press reported, among others.
Unverified images in social media are said to show both that Russia’s soldiers are fleeing westward within Syria, and that Russian aircraft and ships are leaving the country entirely.
Unreasonable information
The reason would be partly that the agreement on Russian military presence – with the two large bases Khmeimim and Tartus – which was concluded with Bashar al-Assad is now as thwarted as his rule. Partly, a crying need for the military resources at home, in the offensive war against Ukraine.
But the reports of large-scale retreats are also dismissed as patently unreasonable. “Most of the resources” remain at Khmeimim and Tartus, writes Dara Massicot, Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, on X. “If an evacuation takes place, it will be seen.”
She clarifies that the large warships have no reasonable way home, as Turkey has closed the Bosphorus to the Black Sea for them.
Some material could be brought home by air, but that would require “hundreds of trips with (the cargo plane) Ilyushin Il-76 and Antonov-124, not the handful that was seen,” she writes, adding: “When Russian forces were deployed in Syria In 2015, they flew almost 300 tours in two weeks, and that was before the presence was expanded”.
Mediating role?
In other words, Russia’s leading role in Syria is not necessarily over.
– The Russian perspective is that they absolutely need this presence, says Anna Borshchevskaya of the Washington Institute think tank in a television interview with Israeli I24.
She then refers, among other things, to the fact that it is Russia’s only direct contact with the Mediterranean and North Africa. Plus the prestige issue. But since the Moscow regime seems as taken to bed as everyone else by the development, the question marks are currently difficult to straighten out.
– How will the Kremlin navigate, try to save the situation? I think they are trying again for some kind of mediating role, says Borshchevskaya