Why Syria Matters to the Kremlin
5 min read
Rebel forces swept into Aleppo on Saturday, capturing the city center in a lightning three-day offensive that seemed to show the slackening of Moscow’s grip on Syria. The symbolism was impossible to ignore: The Syrian regime’s brutal reconquest of that very city in 2016 had demonstrated Russia’s military effectiveness. Now Vladimir Putin’s Russia is preoccupied with Ukraine, and Aleppo has slipped from regime control.
But Russia’s commitment to Syria has not actually wavered, and Russia is not really distracted. The advance of Syria’s rebels, led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), reflects the degradation not of Russian attention but of the multinational ground forces supporting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And Russia is not only not contemplating withdrawing from Syria—it looks poised to double down on its investment there, even if it has to rely on Iranian-backed forces and the cooperation of regional powers to do so.
Syria is important to Moscow because intervening there in 2015 allowed Putin to reverse the narrative of Russian decline that had taken hold since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia would no longer be what then-President Barack Obama dismissed as a declining “regional power”—it was to be a decisive great-power patron of the Assad regime, and as such, it would rewrite the playbook of outside intervention in the Middle East. American-led interventions, such as the invasion of Iraq and the NATO campaign in Libya, shattered states and bred chaos. Russia would have the opposite effect, preserving Syrian sovereignty and regional order.
To understand Russia’s military position in Syria, consider that when Moscow first intervened there, in September 2015, it did so with a surprisingly light footprint and a long-term plan to modernize and strengthen the Syrian military. Moscow deployed just 2,500 to 4,500 personnel to Syria at any given time, focusing on air power, air defenses, and special forces, while relying on Iran and its proxies to supply ground forces. Operating from Khmeimim Air Base, Russian tactical aviation supported ground operations. Long-range bombers in Russia, along with cruise missiles on Russian warships in the Mediterranean, targeted positions deep inside Syria. Moscow also contributed advanced air-defense systems including S-400s, S-300s, and Pantsirs, along with electronic-warfare capabilities.
Moscow sent some special-operations units, military police, advisers, and artillery teams to Syria. But to retake territory from the rebels, it relied almost entirely on a network of Iranian-backed forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units, the Afghan Fatemiyoun, the Pakistani Zeinabiyoun, and Hezbollah. Ultimately, the Kremlin sought to build the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) into a professional fighting force capable of independently securing Assad’s rule, and so it poured resources into modernizing the SAA’s command structures, improving battlefield coordination, and equipping units with advanced Russian weaponry.
Russia’s approach appeared to be sustainable—even in 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and adjusted its military presence in Syria accordingly. Moscow redeployed some aircraft and an S-300 air-defense system to Ukraine, but Khmeimim Air Base remained highly functional. More significant, the Kremlin drew down its minimal presence on the ground, relying more heavily than before on Iranian-backed forces, to whom it transferred some of its command posts.
The invasion of Ukraine also changed Moscow’s Middle East posture in another way. Since getting involved in Syria, Moscow had delicately balanced the claims of Iran and Israel. In 2018, it agreed to hold Iranian forces about 50 miles off from the Golan Heights. The invasion of Ukraine began to shift this equilibrium, as Moscow’s reliance on Iranian drones for that war pushed it closer to Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance.”
None of this seemed like a major problem for Russia until Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Then, as the conflict in Gaza spilled into the surrounding region, Israel escalated from targeting weapons depots in Syria to systematically eliminating high-value Iranian and Hezbollah assets and personnel there. Russia could no longer remain neutral regarding Israeli strikes while simultaneously deepening its reliance on Iranian-backed ground forces. The situation worsened as Israel’s Lebanon offensive degraded Hezbollah, which was, after all, one of the forces Moscow relied on to sustain the status quo in Syria.
The gaps in Moscow’s strategy have now become apparent. When HTS first struck Aleppo, the speed and surprise of the advance left Moscow little time to coordinate with ground forces or organize effective air support at the scale needed to counter such a major offensive. And the collapse of regime defenses revealed that Russia’s long-term strategy to professionalize Assad’s military had failed: At the Kuweires air base, Syrian forces surrendered without resisting. They abandoned valuable assets, including helicopters, aircraft, and advanced air-defense systems.
These setbacks will not drive Russia out of Syria, however. The Kremlin has too much at stake. It has already leveraged its Syrian intervention to rebuild its Middle Eastern influence, positioning itself as an essential mediator among Iran, Turkey, the Gulf states, the United States, and Israel. Moscow has also secured lucrative economic contracts for the reconstruction of Syria.
Given the stakes, Moscow will be compelled to adapt rather than withdraw. It will likely seek to strengthen military cooperation with Iran, including by finding a role for Iraqi militias and recruits in Syria. Reports indicate that this is already happening. Iran has also been recruiting on Telegram channels to replenish its Syrian brigades. These reinforcements may help offset Hezbollah’s losses, but they are unlikely to be as effective as the Russian- and Iranian-led campaign that carried out the Aleppo offensive in 2016.
Russia will probably also try to negotiate with Turkey, which backs some of the rebel groups. Since Saturday, Moscow has uncharacteristically avoided criticizing Turkey over the rebels’ activities. This restraint suggests that Russia is preparing a diplomatic initiative—perhaps one that allows Russia to maintain its presence in some parts of Syria while accommodating Turkish interests in the northwest.
Russia wouldn’t be seeking such an arrangement if it weren’t militarily weakened. Not only have Iranian proxy forces lost muscle; Syrian opposition forces have gained it. They are much better equipped and coordinated than they were in 2015. If they were to continue to Homs from their current position in Hama, they would effectively sever the Russian bases at Latakia and Tartus from Moscow’s modest deployments elsewhere in Syria.
As consuming as the war in Ukraine has been for Russia, the Kremlin does not see it as superseding its Middle East ambitions. That’s because Syria is not just a military outpost. It is a cornerstone of Russia’s claim to great-power status, a theater where it can demonstrate its diplomatic reach and its counternarrative to Western interventionism. This explains why Russia continues to invest in Syria even as it fights a costly war in Ukraine. Moscow may adjust its tactics, but abandoning Syria would mean surrendering something far more precious than territory: Russia’s hard-won position as an indispensable power broker in the Middle East.
