In the language of Vladimir Putin’s favorite daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russia is in the midst of a fascinating spectacle: its leading politicians, military officers and Z-bloggers are turning on a dime and publicly declaring that, despite their recent writings and comments to the contrary, they have in fact long since realized how weak and corrupt Bashar al-Assad’s regime is and actually expected his army to quickly fall apart. Such skepticism is no coincidence: as far as we know, after the Syrian army fled Aleppo and Hama in what the Syrian Defense Ministry, perhaps, out of a habit of euphemism, kept calling a «redeployment», the scriptwriters of Russian television programs began rewriting the plans for their shows as if on cue. Instead of the originally planned barrage of criticism against Turkey, at the behest of which «militant thugs went on the attack», all the anger was directed against Russia’s once «reliable ally in the Arab world», whose salvation the Kremlin had previously used to demonstrate its commitment to its strategic and national interests.
On 7 December, however, the narrative made a U-turn. Media editors, experts and admins of Telegram channels began to receive new guidelines: Abu Muhammad al-Julani (Ahmad Hussein al-Sharaa), the 42-year-old leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist structure banned in Russia, is now said to have worked for MI6 for many years, and more recently, with Ukrainian intelligence as well. Consequently, the British and the Ukrainians are the real culprits of the unfolding events in Syria. Even Fyodor Lukyanov, a regular moderator of the Valdai Club sessions with Putin, who has tried his best to maintain some sanity, jumped on that new playbook in the International Review program. However, by the morning of December 8, when the Assad regime finally collapsed, the talking points contained in this playbook that were interspersed in the information field with statements by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (statements that seemed to be made out of inertia and were indistinguishable from the 2015−2016 rhetoric about the importance of protecting «national sovereignty» and «countering terrorism») had to be dropped. On the airwaves, yesterday’s «militant thugs» and «terrorists» began to morph into «armed units» and «members of the Syrian opposition.»
Obviously, the ban on media criticism of Turkey was imposed in order not to undermine the background negotiations with Ankara, which was consulted through various channels that took great care not to offend local sensitivities/mindful of local political and cultural specificity. Publicly, the Turkish authorities denied any support to the HTS on their part, officially only endorsing the Syrian National Army, which is mainly fighting Kurdish formations in northern Syria, but it was clear that numerous opposition groups could not have possibly infiltrated unnoticed and unhindered through the nearly hundred Turkish strongholds deployed in the Idlib region. Nor could they have obtained enough components for the mass use of FPV drones and equipment for training courses to operate them. However, on the eve of the meeting of the diplomatic «Astana Troika» (Russia, Iran and Turkey) held on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his own style, dropped a subtle but clear hint that the collapse of the Syrian regime was a consequence of Assad’s refusal to normalize relations. While noting that what was happening in Syria was «not what we wanted», he expressed hope that «the march towards Damascus will continue without upheavals and disasters». Moreover, at the time of the Qatar talks, Ankara indicated that it was in a position to influence the HTS and other opposition groups by deploying certain military units into Aleppo where the regime had already fallen.
It is likely that the fact that the Russian diplomatic mission in Damascus continued to operate even when the opposition forces were on their way to the city (just like the Russian diplomatic mission in Kabul, which was open at the time of the Taliban’s seizure of power) attests to the existence of some prior agreements. This is also evidenced by the Russian Foreign Ministry’s subsequent statement that «Assad decided to resign from the presidency and left the country, instructing the transfer of power to be carried out peacefully.» At the same time, not only Turkey but also the HTS group, which in advance circulated an appeal to Russia and China to «respect the will of the people», promised to «establish diplomatic relations» and to protect «diplomatic missions», embody this careful approach to the fallen dictator’s allies. Although Lavrov continued to describe HTS as «terrorists» mere hours before the fall of Damascus, after the city had surrendered the Russian Foreign Ministry said it was in contact «with all factions of the Syrian opposition». The Foreign Ministry’s statement that Russia did not take part in the negotiations «between Assad and a number of participants in the armed conflict», after which he supposedly left office, was a smoke screen designed to deflect any accusation of Russia’s involvement in the quick capitulation of Damascus and, more generally, to distance itself from any of Assad’s decisions. After all, it was not for nothing that Putin once said that the Syrian leader had «made many mistakes in the course of the development of the conflict in Syria.»
It is hardly an overstatement to suggest that Assad made one of his gravest mistakes when he flew to Moscow in late November to seek urgent help. The absence of the president and his family for several days (according to the Russian media, the entire family attended the son’s doctoral defense in Moscow) and the refusal of the Russian army, bogged down in the fighting in Ukraine, to provide urgent and large-scale assistance may have strengthened the confidence of the Syrian security forces that some kind of deal had been struck behind their backs in Moscow. Given the Syrians’ penchant for conspiracy theories, combined with the country’s poor economic situation, it is reasonable to assume that some degree of sabotage did take place, which is why Moscow did not confirm that Assad had visited Moscow, as they should not have allowed this visit to happen in the first place, given the gravity of the situation.
At the same time, while the Russian diplomatic corps was still trying to somehow explain the events in Syria and its own reaction to them, the actions of the military raised many an eyebrow. The sluggish reaction of the Russian air force to the launch of the HTS offensive on 27 November raised suspicions, even among authoritative Middle East experts. There has been speculation that Moscow’s position is not so simple and that it is coordinating its actions with Turkey and «is behind the opposition because the Kremlin is fed up with Assad».
There have indeed been strange aspects to the Russian military’s handling of the situation, but these are unlikely to be linked to any behind-the-scenes arrangements.
The failure to stop and contain the opposition breakthrough is most likely due to the failure of the Russian command to take seriously the possibility of an opposition offensive, although even Syrian pro-government newspapers reported in early October that preparations for such an offensive were underway. The Russian military also failed to properly assess and report on the available fortifications. Despite a series of measures to reduce the size of its fleet, Russian aviation continued to carry out regular strikes on HTS positions after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and up to the current events. Moreover, a Russian SU-25 attack aircraft, which had been withdrawn from the Khmeimim Air Base with the start of the Ukrainian campaign, was shown on Syrian TV only after the fall of Aleppo. However, it is clear that the command of the Russian group relied on Syrian intelligence — the state of which left much to be desired, — to select targets. It is also obvious, that the shortage of army aviation (helicopters) and poor maintenance did not allow mobile targets to be attacked with the necessary intensity.
For comparison: in 2016, the intensity of Russian air support for the regime was such that some of the aircraft from the Khmeimim Air Base airfield not only carried out strikes on the so-called planning table of hitting targets identified, for example, by the Il-20M equipped with a side-scan locator, but were also in the «air duty» position (i.e. continuously remaining in the air in a given area) with a reaction time for hitting targets of 10−20 minutes (the reaction time from the «airfield duty» position was no more than 50 minutes). Probably, the mistakes at the current stage were the reason why Lieutenant General Sergey Kisel’, the general in charge of Russian forces in Syria, was hastily replaced by Colonel General Alexander Chaiko.
The Russian move to conduct military exercises near the Syrian coast from 1 to 3 December (i.e. after the loss of Aleppo), announced by the Russian Defense Ministry on the last day of the official maneuvers, also looked extremely strange.
On the one hand, the statement coincided with the spread of information about the beginning of the withdrawal of Russian ships from the Naval base in Tartous, which was reported by Naval News and confirmed by satellite images. If the Military Ministry wanted to refute rumors and justify the dispersal of ships in the near sea due to the increased danger from the opposition forces, to which the Syrian army «left» in its flight several launchers of the long-range Uragan (220 mm) and Smerch (300 mm) Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), it is unclear why it was necessary to mention such a short period of military exercises. The Russian military has more than once openly and without any cover resorted to such a maneuver to increase the survivability of the ship grouping. This was the case in 2018, when the Assad regime’s position was strong and Moscow initiated the creation of so-called de-escalation zones to consistently weaken and displace pockets of opposition resistance in Idlib.
On the other hand, the Russian military may well have decided not to cancel the planned exercises involving firing at a target position at sea, about which, if the Defense Ministry is to be believed, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Sergey Gerasimov, informed his «American counterparts» in telephone negotiations as early as 27 November. However, in this case it is unclear why and to whom the Defense Ministry demonstrated the capabilities of missile weapons to hit abstract targets in the sea, although the Syrian opposition had by then already taken Aleppo and was advancing toward Hama, and the firepower of Russian aviation was clearly insufficient to contain the real onslaught and prevent the capture of the city. It is as if your friend, who you believe to be loyal and trustworthy, decides to stick to their morning exercise routine and shows off their athletic or acrobatic prowess on the bar at the local gym while the local skinny thugs beat you to a bloody pulp.
Paradoxically, while the Russian command was busy hitting the sea with super-expensive missiles thereby sending confusing messages either to Assad that it would not save him, or to the opposition so as to scare it, or to the «West» so as to contain it out of inertia, many Russian military strongholds and posts remained deployed in terrain with difficult evacuation conditions. While in the south the positions were withdrawn almost at the last moment as the local population, including the pro-Russian 8th Brigade of the 5th Corps, organized their own offensive towards Damascus, some of the official forces and, apparently, operators of the PMC «Redut» affiliated with Russian Defense Ministry, which replaced «Wagner» in Homs, found themselves cut off from the main contingent. According to pro-Kremlin «Z» bloggers, part of the contingent, including from the Kuweires base on the outskirts of Aleppo, was withdrawn at the end of November and beginning of December to the territory of the US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance, the Democratic Forces of Syria. Its fate eventually became the subject of negotiations with Turkey on the creation of special corridors.
As for the official military installations in Latakia and Tartous, Syrian Prime Minister, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, who handed over power to the opposition, said that their fate would be decided by the new authorities. Hypothetically, in the absence of a system of authority, the presence of official facilities on Syrian territory could become a kind of guarantee against external attack, which the quasi-state structures of the HTS, which are adept at diplomacy, could use as part of an unconventional move (for example, to counterbalance the US contingent in eastern Syria).
However, it is hard to believe that the opposition, which Russian aircraft and ships have been trying to destroy since 2015, deliberately failing to distinguish between rebel factions and Islamic State militants, will agree to provide Russia with a tool to project power in the MENA region. Turkey, despite its uneasy relations with the United States and the European Union, hardly needs it either. Especially since the facilities in Syria in recent years have served as an African hub for the development of Russian military and economic presence in various African countries, which has caused nothing but trouble for the Syrian population, as their country has been incorporated by the Kremlin into its overall strategy of containment and struggle against «the West». For Russia, reducing its military capabilities or leaving Syria altogether means withdrawing from the Middle East altogether, where few would respect a country that has no bridgehead for operations and can only provide a rare call of one or two ships to a particular port under a simplified approval scheme or conduct nominal counter-terrorism exercises involving 100 paratroopers.
