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Russia Eyes “Reformatted” Presence at Key Syrian Military Bases
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The Kremlin appears determined to hold onto its two key military footholds in Syria, and its proposed solution is to give them a new job description: Moscow and Damascus are negotiating a "possible reformatting" of how the facilities operate.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced the talks on June 10, Reuters reported.
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For Russia, the stakes are existential to its overseas reach. Tartous is the sole port where Russian warships can refit and restock anywhere in the Mediterranean.
Hmeimim, the airbase in Latakia, functions as the main transit point feeding Russian troops and mercenaries into Africa. Without these two hubs, Moscow's power projection beyond its borders loses its backbone.
Both footholds looked precarious after rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad, the Kremlin's longtime client, in December 2024. Yet Moscow has worked steadily to win over Ahmed al-Sharaa, the onetime rebel commander who took over Syria's presidency, and the facilities have continued operating while their fate is hammered out.
The answer taking shape is not departure but reinvention. Zakharova spoke in response to a question about reported plans to turn Tartous into a logistics hub channeling Russian imports across Syria, a scheme that would graft a commercial role onto the naval installation.
"Russian-Syrian cooperation is developing very actively," she stated.
"Within the framework of contacts with Syrian partners, the issue of Russia's military presence in Syria is also being discussed, including in the context of a possible reformatting of the functionality of Russian military facilities," Zakharova added.
Russia's entanglement with Syria runs deep. Moscow sent its forces into the country in 2015 to rescue Assad's position in the civil war, and the relationship dates to 1944, when the Soviet Union recognized Syrian independence from France.
Even as Assad fell, the agency reported that Russian units retreating from northern Syria were holding fast to Hmeimim and Tartous.
Activity on the ground suggests Moscow already expects to stay. By early May, Russian warships at Tartous had shifted from short supply stops to extended stays at piers built for permanent basing, a change that followed the departure of the last US forces from Syria in mid-April.
Damascus has reportedly weighed its own variant of repurposing, converting the remaining Russian bases into training grounds for the new Syrian army—one more shape the "new function" could take.
Cargo traffic tells the same story. On May 11, the Russian vessel Sparta tied up at Tartous under warship escort and offloaded what was likely military or dual-use equipment, the first such confirmed delivery since the change of power in Syria. Several ships in the convoy switched off their transponders or transmitted fake coordinates after clearing the Strait of Gibraltar.
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