Vladimir Putin could have done without this lesson in blitzkrieg. The one who dreamed of taking Kiev in 48 hours in a lightning "special military operation" has just become a stunned witness to the advance on Damascus of the rebels that his army had been doing everything possible to checkmate in Syria for a decade. Alas! Ultimately, the rebels deposed his protégé Bashar al-Assad, ending a 53-year dictatorship in twelve days, the online edition of the French newspaper L"Express analyzes.
After failing to prevent the fall of the "Butcher of Damascus", the Kremlin boss offered him asylum in Moscow, not far from another ousted president, the Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted by parliament on February 22, 2014 under street pressure. That is exactly what Vladimir Putin's "dear friends" can hope for. There is no doubt that the rest of Russia's client states view Bashar's disgrace with some caution.
"In 2015, the Russian intervention in Syria symbolized the return of Russian power to the Middle East, emphasizes Tatyana Kastueva-Jean, director of the Russia-Eurasia Center at the French Institute of International Relations. Vladimir Putin sent a message to the entire global South: ally yourself with Russia and your regime will be safe." A message received by many African leaders in need of legitimacy, attracted by the promise of this "Russian shield". In 2017, Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir allowed himself to be seduced, soon followed by the president of Central Africa, threatened by a rebellion at the gates of Bangui. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger will follow, three failed states taken over by coup plotters who have also agreed to sell the exploitation of gold mines and other resources in exchange for a Praetorian Guard and military reinforcements against rebel or jihadist factions.
Without its Syrian bases, Russia's strategy is amputated
To sell its services, Moscow has an unprecedented asset: two military bases located on the Syrian coast, offering a unique strategic shortcut to Africa: the Tartus naval base, the pearl of the Russian army in the Mediterranean, a legacy of the Soviet era, and the Khmeimim airfield, used since 2015. "The Khmeimim base is a crucial refueling point for flights transporting personnel or military equipment to various locations in Africa, explains Mark Galeotti, a British historian, Russia specialist and author of "Putin's Wars". Without it, the only way cargo planes can get from Russia to Africa is through Turkish airspace, which would give Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan full authority to close the route whenever he sees fit.”
If Putin has anything to save in Syria, it’s these two fortresses: Tartus and Hmeimim. And not just because of his African ambitions. “Access to warm seas – ice-free all year round – is the raison d’être for ‘Greater Russia,’” a French military source recalled. But Turkey closed its straits to warships after Russian ships invaded Ukraine. The loss of Tartus would be a huge strategic blow. The Russian fleet would be left with only the ports of St. Petersburg and Murmansk. Not to mention that these two outposts in the Mediterranean are inconvenient for Moscow. "Before, the Mediterranean was a friendly space, this source continues, if a threat arrived, it was tracked at two entry points: Gibraltar or Suez. The Tartus naval base has introduced a new competitor to this theater of operations, forcing us to constantly intercept intelligence to assess the level of the threat."
Making a deal with yesterday's enemy
A sign of the strategic importance of these two bases is that Moscow seems ready to do anything to maintain control of them, including making a pact with yesterday's enemy. This is evidenced by the radical change in tone towards the main rebel movement behind the fall of the Syrian regime, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTC). On December 7, twenty-four hours before the overthrow of the tyrant Assad, the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, described HTC fighters as "terrorists", as did the pro-Kremlin media. The next day, however, RIA Novosti and TASS preferred the term "armed opposition". At the same time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated that the authorities were taking all "necessary measures to establish contacts in Syria with those who are able to guarantee the security of military bases". Another Kremlin source told Russian state media that Moscow had received guarantees from Syrian opposition leaders.
"A deal between the Russians and HTC, negotiated through Turkey, cannot be ruled out, believes Tatyana Kastueva-Jean. If Putin manages to keep the lease agreements for his bases signed in 2017 for forty-nine years, he will have succeeded. "For Putin, politics is the art of the possible", recalls Russian researcher Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the analytical company R.Politik. "He will always choose the option that is available to him at a given moment."
The game is not over for Moscow yet. "Especially since the real loser in this affair is Iran, emphasizes Mark Galeotti. After the strikes on the Lebanese Hezbollah, it is losing its number 1 regional ally in the person of Bashar Assad. From the Kremlin’s perspective, this is a good thing: Iran may be an ally, but it is also a rival for influence in the Middle East. So the fact that Tehran is being reduced to a minimum, a little less arrogant and self-confident, is quite good news for Moscow.”
The grand defeat of the Assad clan, which surprised the whole world, including its Moscow godfather, reveals the shortcomings of its intelligence services. It also shows the limits of the “Putin system.” “Its capacity to react to “black swans,” these large and unpredictable events, is much smaller than in the past, before the large-scale invasion of February 2022, continues Mark Galeotti. For one simple reason: all its resources, military, financial and political, are absorbed by the war in Ukraine. The system remains in a relatively strong and stable position... until it encounters unexpected, serious and unavoidable problems. The accelerated fall of his dictator friend, however, sends a serious warning to Vladimir Putin, traumatized in 2011 by the fall of another of his companions: Muammar Gaddafi.