Moscow had no plan to rescue the Syrian president, with Vladimir Putin expressing disgust at reports that regime troops were abandoning their positions.
“Russia has no plan to rescue Assad and does not see one emerging as long as the Syrian president’s army continues to abandon its positions,” a Kremlin source said. The Kremlin may also have noticed the shift in Syrian rebel rhetoric.
Rebel leader Jolani, previously linked to fundamentalist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, now says he has changed his mind and wants a peaceful transition of power and a Syria where all religious sects can coexist peacefully. Therefore, according to this reasoning, Putin has no reason to present Assad to the world as “the unpleasant but acceptable (secular) status quo”.
It is also extremely important to note that there are now reports that the leaders of the Syrian opposition have agreed to guarantee the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions in Syria. It is not surprising that on Sunday morning, when the rebels seized the Syrian capital, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the two military facilities had been put on high alert, but downplayed the risk of an immediate threat.
The future of Russian military bases in Syria will be a subject of discussion with the new rulers in Damascus: “These are all issues to be discussed with those who will be in power in Syria”.
Incidentally, the newly elected US President Donald Trump, who claims to know Putin “very well”, wrote in a post on Truth Social: “Assad is gone. He has abandoned his country. His protector, Russia, under Vladimir Putin, was no longer interested in protecting him. There was no reason for Russia to be there. They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where nearly 600,000 Russian soldiers are wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started and could have gone on forever.”
Russian officials reject Trump’s death and injury figures. However, his theory that Russia, weakened by the war in Ukraine, could not protect Assad seems to be gaining traction. And if that is true, then Putin may have been wise to keep open lines of communication with Syrian rebels and the opposition, even before Assad was toppled.
He may have ensured the safety of Assad and his family by offering them political asylum in Russia “on humanitarian grounds,” but he did everything possible to keep Russian interests in Syria intact, while Trump described Syria as a “chaos” in which the US should not get involved, as “it is not our fight.”
Sudan or Libya? Where should the Russian fleet go?
Meanwhile, Russian warships have reportedly left the Tartus base.
The withdrawal of warships to the high seas may be a temporary measure until a decision is made on further actions.
The Russian naval force in Syria includes
- the frigate Admiral Golovko,
- the Admiral Grigorovich,
- the auxiliary supply ships Vyazma and Yelnya, and
- the submarine Novorossiysk.
A publication in the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung suggests that Russia should negotiate with the new authorities in Damascus to maintain a naval presence – after all, the base in Tartus was not just a matter of prestige. The permanent operational formation of the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean Sea made it possible to conduct operations in Africa, including Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan and the Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad), where the Russian military presence in recent years has increased.
The importance of the naval base in Tartus increased in 2022, after Turkey closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. This made it impossible for new military ships to pass from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. However, even before 2022, Russia sought to strengthen its naval presence in the Middle East.
In particular, Vladimir Putin and former Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir agreed to create a base in the Red Sea capable of hosting 300 Russian soldiers and four ships. The base was to be located in Port Sudan, which since the outbreak of the civil war in 2023 has been the de facto capital of the country.
Initially, an agreement was reached on the construction of a base in Port Sudan by Russia with the old authorities of the country, then it was suspended, but the new leadership (in October 2021, after the coup, the military came to power) continued cooperation with Russia. This spring, a large Russian delegation headed by the Special Representative of the President Bogdanov visited Sudan. Ultimately, it was agreed to build a military base, in exchange for support for the Sudanese army.
The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) predicts that, against the backdrop of the events in Syria, Russia will significantly accelerate the creation of a new naval base in Sudan. The base in Port Sudan will not only allow for full control of the Red Sea, but will also provide Russian military logistics in Africa, writes ISW. Currently, a base in Tartus is used for this, the future of which is uncertain.
Personnel and equipment were transferred from Tartus to Libya, which served as a springboard for the transfer of forces and resources to the Sahel countries. Russian military logistics are carried out through the port of Tobruk in Cyrenaica. Tobruk is the largest port in eastern Libya, which is controlled by the Libyan National Army under the command of Khalifa Haftar.
In the conflict in Libya, Russia supports him. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov has already made four visits to Benghazi, Khalifa Haftar’s political and military base, since August 2023. The strategic supply hub is located in Jufra, a region of Libya located 350 kilometers south of the Gulf of Sirte, where forces and equipment arrive from Tobruk.
Negotiations between Moscow and Haftar included the creation of a naval base in Libya: in Tobruk or Sirte. This would pose a direct threat to NATO forces in the Mediterranean. Russian warships in Sirte would generally be a nightmare for NATO, since the city, located at the junction of Cyrenaica (East) and Tripolitania (West), is only 600 kilometers from the coast of Sicily. The project of a Russian base in Sirte, by the way, is a long-term plan, on which Moscow negotiated with Gaddafi in 2009-2010.
It is noted that this could be a dual-use port. China has been following this path for a long time: it has created several dual-use ports through agreements with national authorities. Such a purely military port, lulling the West, becomes military only over time. Surely, as in the case of Sudan, the situation in Syria will force Moscow to intensify negotiations with Haftar on the creation of a naval base.
If you are looking for a replacement for Tartus, then the Libyan ports are much more convenient than the Sudanese ones. Port Sudan is further away from various Russian military installations in the Sahel and only slightly closer to the other main area of operations in the Central African Republic.
