Why Russia Was in Syria in the First Place

On December 8, Syrian opposition forces announced the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad following their capture of Damascus, ending over five decades of authoritarian rule. 

Since the start of the Syrian war in 2011, Russia backed Bashar al-Assad’s regime, providing a diplomatic shield for Damascus in the UN Security Council while continuing to supply them with modern arms. 

In September 2015 Russia launched its military involvement in Syria after Bashar al-Assad requested military support. It was the first time since the Cold War that Russia had entered an armed conflict with another country outside of the former Soviet Union.

Russia’s intervention in Syria was multifaceted and is referred to as a “testing ground” for the weapons and war tactics that they use against Ukraine today. 

The Syrian regime was using Russian military tactics, they were like ‘junior’ war criminals compared to Russia.

Dr Hamza al-Kateab

Syrian Doctor

Russia’s relentless shelling and assaults on civilian areas and hospitals, drone surveillance, and artillery support in Ukraine, also played a role in holding back rebel gains in Syria. 

The Syrian-Russian relationship

Russia has long-standing connections with Syria, decades before the Bashar Al-Assad Syrian war began. In July 1944 the Soviet Union backed Syria’s independence. In 1956, Syria signed a major arms deal with Czechoslovakia. “Eastern Bloc” contacts had been established which allowed the Kremlin to slide into becoming the primary military backer, and the Soviet Union began to export large amounts of arms to Syria. 

During this time, in the Cold War era, the Soviet Union emerged as Syria’s most loyal military ally. The Kremlin and Damascus both opposed Western powers, predominantly the US. 

From 1955 to 1960, the Soviet Union provided Syria with more than $200 million in military aid to solidify the alliance and allegedly “counter US influence.”

In February 1972, Syria signed a peace and security pact with the Soviet Union as a means to strengthen its defense capability. Their relationship drifted after the Cold War ended but revived once both Moscow and countries in the Middle East began to be caught up in conflict with the US during the mid-2000s. 

Iran and Syria have also had a history of strengthened alliances. The Iranian revolution in 1979 reversed Tehran’s pro-US orientation. Syria was the first Arab state to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Subsequently, Tehran intensified its political and military ties with the Kremlin. Moscow and Tehran have formed what many call an “axis of evil”, and just a few months after the full-scale invasion, Russia began attacking Ukraine with the Iranian Shahed-136 drones. 

“Syria was probably more important to the USSR than (any) other Arab nation,” Andrej Kreutz, a teacher of political science and international relations at the University of Calgary, Canada wrote in his book Russia in the Middle East. This was partly due to its geopolitical location. 

Syria not only offered Russia a foothold in the Middle East, but a key port on the coast of the Mediterranean. Russian ships no longer needed to travel through the straits controlled by Turkey which was previously firmly supporting the West.

Using Syria to combat Western narrative

“Color revolutions” in post-Soviet countries threatened the Kremlin by creating a wave of pro-democracy and pro-reform movements. Protests in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan from 2003 to 2005 impacted Russia’s influence in the regions. 

In 2014, after Ukraine’s pro-democracy Revolution of Dignity, Russia invaded Ukraine annexing Crimea, occupying the Donbas and the Luhansk regions. Western sanctions were placed on Russia, targeting the economy and the Kremlin. 

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The West had already been heavily involved in the Syrian war, so Russia likely saw this as an opportunity to form another front and to involve the West in negotiations. 

Russia may have also seen the rise of ISIS  as an opportunity to create more domestic support by wrapping its involvement into an anti-terrorism rhetoric. In turn, diminishing the likelihood of a “colored revolution” on its soil. 

Russia has a large Muslim population, and some had gone to fight for ISIS and other anti-Assad forces, but not for Assad himself. Putin may have also been concerned about what the effects would be on the Muslim population that remained in Russia.

Russia’s involvement in Syria

Since 2011, there has been intense fighting in Syria, mass desertion weakened the Syrian Arab Army, and weapons shipments and mercenaries supplied by Russia have not been enough to stop the opposition and radical armed groups. 

In 2015, President Bashar al-Assad’s rule was increasingly under threat. The Syrian government had lost large swathes of several provinces – Idlib, Aleppo, Raqqa, Deir Az Zor, Hassakeh, Deraa and Quneitra – and was struggling to control Hama, Homs and Damascus.

In September 2015, Russia moved its forces into its airbase in the Latakia Province and began conducting air strikes. The Kremlin claims that they were targeting ISIS however, reports stated that the majority were striking Western and Turkish-backed groups. 

Putin and US President Barack Obama met at the UN General Assembly to begin a “memorandum of understanding ” to “deconflict” the air operations over Syria between Russia and the US.

Russia and the US placed a nationwide cease-fire known as the “United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 .”

For years following, Russian and Assad-aligned forces regularly indiscriminately targeted both military and civilian targets, cutting off humanitarian aid and key supply routes provided for by the UN’s Resolution 2254. The cease-fire was continuously broken. 

From 2011 to 2022, Russia used its veto 17 times to block U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed against the regime.

Russia’s war in Syria—a template for brutality in Ukraine

While both the war in Syria and Ukraine are starkly different, Russia’s war tactics mirror those it deployed in Syria. 

In 2013, the Assad regime gassed its own citizens in Zamalka, Ein Tarma, and Irbin in the Ghouta countryside with a nerve agent. Syrian Network of Human Rights (SNHR) documented that over 1,119 civilians, including 99 children and 194 women (adult female), and 25 armed opposition fighters were killed. 

Russia agreed to diplomatic resolutions regarding the chemical attacks, but a lack of military response from the West demonstrated no will to intervene. Inaction from the West may have had repercussions for Ukraine. 

In Syria, “more than 45,000 Russian airstrikes were declared in just the first three years of fighting– many targeting civilian areas and infrastructure,” reported Airwars a not-for-profit transparency watchdog.

Airwars found that “more than 24,000 non-combatants have been locally alleged killed either by Moscow’s actions or in events where communities were unable to distinguish between Russian and regime attacks. Russia itself still publicly maintains no civilians have been harmed in its strikes.”

One of the last remaining hospitals in Eastern Aleppo was founded during the war by Dr. Hamza Alkateab, a Syrian doctor, activist, and public health advocate. Hamza’s hospital was the only remaining medical facility during the siege of Eastern Aleppo and was a victim of relentless Russian and Syrian military attacks. One specific Russian airstrike killed 53 people, mainly civilians.

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Hamza told UNITED24 Media that Syrians were afraid of having hospital treatment and that it was more dangerous to stay in hospital rather than being at home. He added that the Assad regime did not have large-scale weapons until Russian forces arrived in Syria.

“We’d seen locally made explosives, similar to mortars, but when Russia came, we experienced white phosphorus, chlorine gas attacks, cluster bombs, and more. Our hospital was subject to attacks like these, explosive barrels, mortars, even a floating gas attack.”

What does the collapse of pro-Assad Russia mean for Ukraine?

Russian authorities have reportedly granted asylum to Assad and his family, according to a Kremlin source. 

“Bashar al-Assad's escape from Damascus was accompanied by reports of the disappearance of an Il-76T aircraft carrying the Syrian dictator from radar monitoring, allegedly due to a shootdown or an aviation accident,“ HUR  wrote.

Russia used this disinformation to cover up its rescue operation of the Syrian leader and a small circle of his close associates, HUR reported.

A source cited by Russian state media RIA Novosti on December 8 said that the opposition forces that overthrew Assad’s regime have guaranteed the safety of Russian military bases and diplomatic missions in Syria.

HUR announced that “the Russian army has withdrawn its warships from the naval base in Tartus, which Assad had previously lent to Moscow in return for its security,” adding that Russia is “transferring the remnants of their weapons and military equipment from Syria by military planes from the Khmemim air base.”

Russia’s military equipment pulled from Syria may now be readily available in its war against Ukraine. This is concerning for Ukraine’s military forces. However, some are highlighting that Moscow’s failures in the Middle East have shown their weakness, that they can be defeated, and have been a “huge slap in the face” for Russia. 

“The Assad regime fell not only due to the strength of the opposition but the lack of Russian troops in Syria, said Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy. “The entire combat-ready Russian army is on the territory of Ukraine,” he said.

“This says precisely that the entire army of this pseudo-empire is fighting against the Ukrainian people today.”

“The events in Syria have made the world realize once again, or at least they should, that even the most cruel regime may fall and that Russia and its allies can be defeated,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X.