Trump posted twice thus far about Russia and Syria at the time of this analysis’ publication. His full messages can be read here and here, but what follows are the relevant excerpts as they pertain to those two. Here’s what he wrote in his first post:
“Russia, because they are so tied up in Ukraine, and with the loss there of over 600,000 soldiers, seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years. This is where former President Obama refused to honor his commitment of protecting the RED LINE IN THE SAND, and all hell broke out, with Russia stepping in. But now they are, like possibly Assad himself, being forced out, and it may actually be the best thing that can happen to them. There was never much of a benefit in Syria for Russia, other than to make Obama look really stupid.”
And here’s what he wrote in his second one:
“Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer. There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place. They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started, and could go on forever. Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success.”
As can be seen, both reference Ukrainian claims of Russia suffering over 600,000 casualties, which is just a cheap propaganda point in this context to emphasize its commitment to the special operation. Russia’s prioritization of its military operations against Ukraine over its anti-terrorist ones in Syria is also mentioned in each post too. Unlike the casualty figures that Trump cited, this is mostly accurate, but he still put a negative spin on it claiming that Russia was incapable of stopping the terrorists’ march.
The reality is that Russia could have hypothetically diverted some of its Aerospace Forces from the Ukrainian front to the Syrian one, but that would have been a waste of resources since the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) surrendered entire cities without putting up a fight. Bombs can only do so much in a conflict such as this one when ground forces are ultimately needed to win the war and keep the peace. If the SAA wasn’t going to fight to save Syria, then Russia wasn’t going to expend additional resources for this.
While it’s true that Russia protected Syria for years, it also encouraged Assad to implement UNSC Resolution 2254 from December 2015, which called for far-reaching political reforms like promulgating a new constitution and holding UN-supervised elections. As regards the first imperative, Russia even drafted a constitution for Syria to help with this, though Assad defiantly rejected it due to its numerous concessions. In hindsight, the latest disaster could have been avoided had he gone along with that plan.
Therefore, while Syria was indisputably the victim of foreign-backed aggression orchestrated first and foremost by Turkiye, the coup de grace that ended the Syrian Arab Republic was to a large extent inadvertently facilitated by none other than Assad himself. Russia rescued Syria in late 2015 because it wanted to prevent the creation of a black hole of instability from which terrorists could threaten it. The intervention was never meant to rescue Assad personally and keep him in power indefinitely.
At the time, the SAA was still putting up a fight for the country, hence why Russia assisted them with its Aerospace Forces in order to aid their ground operations. Russia also assumed that Assad would repay the favor of saving his state by making the political compromises requested of him afterwards such as those that its earlier mentioned draft constitution for Syria entailed no matter how painful they may be. What ended up happening was altogether different from what Russia expected.
Instead of getting stronger during the ceasefires that Russia helped broker and preparing adequate defenses around the country’s main cities in the event that such cessations of hostilities were abruptly broken, the SAA became weaker, atrophied, and turned into a shell of its former self. As for Assad, he became more arrogant and arguably relied more on Iranian support to hedge against the scenario of Russia curtailing some of its own support as a means of incentivizing him to make political concessions.
The end result was the disaster that just unfolded whereby Assad and the SAA surrendered the country to terrorists without a fight, even leaving behind Russian equipment that they captured and will likely pass along to their Turkish patron, which’ll probably give it to the US to study. Assad didn’t even address his nation once and fled the capital without a word. He and his armed forces behaved very shamefully, but Russia still let him receive asylum because it doesn’t betray its friends, as a senior diplomat said.
As for what’ll happen to Russia’s military presence in Syria, it’s unclear whether Trump’s post about it being “forced out” will come to pass, although some reports have circulated from reputable Russian milbloggers suggesting that a phased but dignified withdrawal might be in the cards. In that event, it could complicate Russian PMCs’ military logistics to Africa seeing as how its Syrian bases were allegedly used to aid this, but alternatives might emerge in North Africa (Libya) and/or Northeast Africa (Sudan).
This analysis here argued over the weekend that Russia might remain in Syria even if it’s asked by the new authorities to depart, possibly even going as far as to support the creation of an independent coastal state. Since then, however, terrorist-designated groups entered the coast without any local resistance. This could lead to very serious threats to Russian servicemen if those groups are tasked by the US with forcibly kicking Russia out in order to replace its naval base with an American one.
It might therefore be better for Russia to cut its losses, leave Syria for others to manage, and avoid the military logistical complications that Turkiye and post-Assad Syria might create if they refuse to allow the Russian Aerospace Forces to transit through their airspace and threaten to shoot down their planes. It of course remains to be seen what’ll happen, but that would be the most cogent explanation if this occurs in spite of all the blood and treasure that Russia invested into Syria from 2015 till today.
Iran invested much more blood though, and it and its Hezbollah allies were known to have a much greater military presence on the ground, so their seemingly inevitable departure from post-Assad Syria (if it hasn’t happened already) would be much more damaging for their interests and prestige. It can also be argued that they could have done more than Russia to save Syria had the SAA actually fought to defend their country and Assad didn’t go into hiding due to their much larger ground presence.
Even in that scenario, however, their capabilities would have been very limited due to how much they’ve been weakened by their West Asian Wars with Israel. At the end of the day, what happened was a disaster and no honest observer can deny that, but they also shouldn’t try to spin it as Russia’s fault like Trump did in his posts. The SAA is principally to blame for not resisting the terrorists because they could have overthrown Assad if he speculatively gave them orders to retreat that they disagreed with.
Assad was proven to have been a very unreliable ally, and it appears in retrospect that he was exploiting Russia and Iran to remain in power indefinitely without carrying out the compromises that he was legally obliged to per UNSC Resolution 2254. He must take full responsibility as the head of state for what happened, but he’ll probably spin a conspiracy theory to absolve himself of any blame, as will his pro-Resistance surrogates in the Alt-Media Community whose lies about him and the SAA were just exposed.
