The shift in Russia's attention to Syria, where it launched airstrikes on Sept. 30, has coincided with relative calm in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine's Donbas.
In the long run, however, Russia’s continuation of its war against Ukraine will depend on its strategy in Syria, analysts say. If the Kremlin’s intervention to prop up dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime is short-term and limited, Russia may still be able to wage its war in the Donbas.
But if Russia steps up its presence in Syria, its adventure could become risky and may even turn into a quagmire comparable to the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan. In this case, the Kremlin will be unlikely to wage war against Ukraine effectively.
Russia’s intentions in Syria and Ukraine may become clearer in an Oct. 2 meeting among Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris.
Russia has also requested a one-on-one meeting between Putin and Poroshenko in Paris, Konstyantyn Elyseyev, a deputy of Poroshenko’s chief of staff, said on Oct. 1. He said Ukraine had not yet decided on the proposal by the time this edition of the Kyiv Post went to press.
Although Moscow says it has started its air campaign in Syria against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Russia has bombed targets in areas that are not controlled by that group. The first strikes on Sept. 30 occurred near the cities of Homs, Hama and Latakia, and hit the positions of the secular Free Syrian Army, a U.S. ally, according to a vast pool of media reports, video, and photo evidence.
The bombings took place only two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared in the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 28 to seek an international coalition against terrorism. Poroshenko, who spoke on Sept. 29, mocked Putin’s anti-terrorism credentials, noting that the Kremlin leader has instigated war and terrorism against Ukraine since February 2014. Ukrainians walked out on Putin as he spoke; five Ukrainians were kicked out of the hall after holding up Ukraine’s national flag as the Kremlin leader spoke.
Kirill Mikhailov, a member of the War in Ukraine intelligence team, told the Kyiv Post that his group had found photos and videos of Russian Su-24 and Su-25 fighter aircraft operating in Syria. Russian warplanes of these types had earlier been spotted at Syria’s Bassel al-Assad Airport, he said. More proof that they are indeed Russian aircraft is that Assad’s air force doesn’t have Su-25 planes, Mikhailov added.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it was only targeting ISIS and published a video of one airstrike. But the War in Ukraine open source team said the Russian ministry was lying and located the site of the strike as Al-Lataminah, where there are no ISIS troops.
Top U.S. officials have already expressed concern over Russia’s actions, warning it not to strike non-ISIS targets.
However, that warning appeared to have gone unheeded on Oct. 1, as several reports emerged in a number of media of renewed Russian air strikes on groups other than ISIS.
The air strikes have heightened speculation over Russia’s intentions in Syria, with the United States and its allies appearing to have been caught flat-footed by the Kremlin’s sudden appearance in the Syrian theater.
Putin during his speech on Sept. 28 at the U.N. General Assembly and then in talks with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama claimed that he was seeking cooperation with the United States to fight ISIS. But some experts say Putin is not interested in combatting ISIS, and is only seeking to support Assad by attacking the other rebel groups that are actually leading the struggle against the Syrian dictator’s regime.
Russia has also clandestinely deployed up to 2,000 infantry and at least seven tanks in Syria in recent weeks, according to media reports and open-source intelligence investigations. Putin on Sept. 30 denied that Russia is planning any ground operations in the country, although earlier video footage of Russian troops allegedly fighting alongside Assad’s forces has already been widely shared on the Internet.
Russia’s pattern of lying about its actions in Syria bears a striking resemblance to its actions in Ukraine, where it has denied sending troops and supplying equipment in the face of an immense amount of evidence to the contrary, experts say.
Viacheslav Tseluiko, a military expert at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, attributed Russia’s decision to intervene in Syria to its desire to break its international isolation and gain leverage in its talks with the West, including on Ukraine. Analysts also say that one of Putin’s motives was to persuade the West to lift sanctions imposed on Russia due to its aggression in Ukraine.
“Russia is trying to get a foothold in that region to have a tool for influencing the United States,” political analyst Vitaly Bala, head of the Situation Modeling Agency, told the Kyiv Post by phone.
Bala said that Russia’s Syrian gamble was a diversion aimed at making the West forget about the Kremlin’s aggression in Ukraine.
“It’s like if you had a headache and someone cut your hand off to make you forget about it,” he said.
Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told the Kyiv Post that one of Russia’s motives in shifting to Syria is that it “suffered a major fiasco in Ukraine.”
Putin initially wanted the whole of Ukraine to be integrated into the Eurasian Union, but two years later Ukraine is actually more pro-Western and anti-Kremlin than ever, he said.
Currently, Russia’s involvement in Syria is unlikely to jeopardize its capability to wage war in Ukraine. The Kremlin now has 32 warplanes and seven helicopters in Syria, according to media reports.
“One U.S. aircraft carrier has more warplanes than the ones deployed by Russia in Syria,” Tseluiko said.
Russian troops can achieve local results but are unlikely to significantly change the military situation, he added.
Moreover, fighting ISIS is a very difficult task.
“ISIS is a very liquid structure,” Tseluiko said. “Unlike Ukraine, it doesn’t have a definite population or definite borders. The war on ISIS is an attempt to break a puddle. You can break a piece of ice, but you can’t break a puddle.”
Given the limited size of its Syrian contingent, Russia can still wage war on two fronts.
“Russia may continue its aggression in Donbas and have a military presence in Syria at the same time,” Tseluiko said.
He said Russia’s war against Ukraine “can be unfrozen at any moment.”
Another scenario is that Russia launches a full-blown military operation to prop up Assad, in which case it will be too preoccupied with Syria to wage its Ukrainian war.
However, it will be difficult for Russia to step up its military presence because there are few places where its aircraft can be based, Tseluiko said.
Given the huge distance between Russia and Syria, logistics will also be very hard. “If you supply a big force by air, every nail will cost as if it’s made of gold,” Tseluiko said.
To cause serious damage to ISIS or other rebel groups, Russia must have at least 10,000 to 20,000 land troops, Tseluiko said.
Deploying such a large force would pose major risks for Russia, with some analysts even painting the apocalyptic scenario of Putin’s regime collapsing in a way similar to the Soviet Union’s breakup after the Afghanistan War.
“We must assume that the Kremlin has a distorted perception of reality to conclude that it will increase its presence in the region and get mired in a full-blown war,” Tseluiko said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]
