Russia Continues Involvement in Syria

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottown, PEI] Guardian

With western countries largely preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic and the fiasco in Afghanistan, the civil war in Syria has fallen off the radar. But not for Russia.

Russia’s military involvement in Syria from September 2015 on led to the collapse of the rebels opposing the regime and secured the continued rule of Syrian President Bashar alAssad.

The opposition couldn’t withstand the unrestrained use of military force, mostly from the air, backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Shiite militias that the Iranians brought with them into Syria.

The brutality demonstrated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to achieve his goals in Syria stood in direct contrast to the lack of interest, indecision, and perhaps even weakness shown by the United States over the past decade with respect to the Syrian crisis.

Russia’s involvement has strengthened its image in the eyes of the region, where governments have been deeply impressed by the determination and destructiveness Moscow used to promote its objectives, as well as its readiness to help an ally in trouble.

On the other hand, American credibility never recovered after President Barack Obama blinked when Assad’s regime crossed Washington’s “red line” by using poison gas against his own people in August 2013, killing more than 1,400.

Moscow wants to lead Syria’s reconstruction process, while gaining possession of economic assets. The Mediterranean port of Tartus has been leased to

Russia by the Syrian government for 49 years for both military and economic purposes. The deal gives the Kremlin sovereign jurisdiction over the base.

Russia is expanding the navy base and planning to construct a floating dock to boost the port’s ship repair facilities, according to Russian military officials. Upgrading the repair facilities will allow the Russian navy to avoid dispatching ships to naval installations in the Black Sea for maintenance.

The agreement also allows Russia to keep a dozen warships, including nuclear-powered vessels, at Tartus, the only navy facility the Kremlin possesses outside the former Soviet Union.

The Russian Ministry of Defense is currently working on expanding the capacities of Syria’s Khmeimim air base in Latakia as part of Russia’s plans to entrench its presence in the eastern Mediterranean in the long run.

It is working on making it a centre to facilitate logistical and strategic transfers from Russia to Syria, and from there to any other base in the Middle East such as al-Jufra base in Libya.

The expansion also carries a message to the new U.S. administration -- that there will be no immediate withdrawal of the Russians and that Syria is a major area of influence for them.

The Russians have also taken steps to obtain contracts in the fields of construction, transport, electricity and water, industry, and agriculture. They have invested special effort in the attempt to acquire concessions to search for gas from the fields along the Syrian Mediterranean coast, and from the oil and gas fields to the east of Syria.

But Syria is a ruined country, with some three quarters of its economic infrastructure destroyed. Since Assad’s troops fired the first shots at peaceful protesters in the southern city of Daraa in the spring of 2011, around 6.6 million people have been displaced within Syria. A similar number have been forced to flee the country. The number of dead may be as high as 600,000.

In the past year, food prices in the country have gone up 247 per cent. According to the World Food Program, 12.4 million people in Syria, or about 70 per cent of the population, are going hungry.

There are over one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, making up around a quarter of the country’s people. In Jordan, with a population of about 10 million, there are 1.3 million Syrian refugees, and in Turkey, there are more than 3.5 million. And while the West has forgotten about it, the carnage continues.