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How Russia is botching its alliance with Syria


Russia’s relationships with its client states have never been easy. Of course, managing client states is always a complicated exercise. The Kremlin’s cupboard is full of skeletons—Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), Cuba (1962), Afghanistan (1980), Ukraine (2014) and so on.

What complicates Russia’s relationship with Syria, which has sometimes been referred to as a Russian client state, is that two strong-willed, highly self-opinionated leaders are also involved here—Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of Syria Bashar al-Assad. Both enjoy unshakeable clan support and can hold their ground. Assad is by no means a Russian protege, and the interests of the two countries do not always overlap, either.

The Syrian government is fighting an existential battle, and it sees no reason to barter away its hard-earned victories in order to accommodate implacable enemies who refuse to reconcile with defeat and seek to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. In sum, Assad is hell-bent on regaining Syria’s sovereignty and restoring its territorial integrity, no matter what it takes or the timeline involved—preferably with Russia’s help and cooperation. Assad is clear-headed that unless he achieves this objective, the predatory powers will not leave him in peace.

The Kremlin, on the contrary, has multiple goals, including objectives that are unrelated to the Syrian situation. These range from vanquishing the terrorist groups that include extremist elements from Russia’s restive Muslim population to Russia’s resurgence as a military power with the capability to fight expeditionary wars.

The intervention in Syria has signified post-Soviet Russia’s “return” to the eastern Mediterranean, while the establishment of permanent Russian military bases in Syria has assertively proclaimed Moscow’s intention to play the role of arbiter in Middle Eastern affairs. And all this while hoping to achieve a level of engagement with the U.S., which would give gravitas to the rocky Russian-American relations and reduce Russia’s tensions with Europe.



Among them, the most notable, perhaps, was the article titled “War, the Economy and Politics in Syria: Broken Links” penned by the former Russian ambassador to Syria Aleksandr Aksenenok, who is also vice president of the influential Russian International Affairs Council (affiliated with the foreign ministry).

The article was patently written with an eye on the Western audience to convey a sense of annoyance toward Assad and signaled Moscow’s wish that his regime ought to switch its priorities from reconquering all of Syria to pursuing post-war development in the approximately 65 percent of the country that it controls at present.

The Kremlin’s viewpoint appears to be that it cannot continue to bankroll the war, and there is an imperative need to motivate the West and the Gulf Arab states to provide the funds for Syrian reconstruction. A high degree of frustration in Moscow is palpable in Aksenenok’s imputation that vested interests in Damascus could be seeking continuation of the war. He wrote:

The war produced centers of influence and shadow organizations that are not interested in a transition to peaceful development[,] although Syrian society, including businesspeople and some government officials, have developed requirements for political reform… However, this requirement cannot be expressed openly in an atmosphere of total fear and domination by the secret services.


As sure as night following the day, Damascus hit back. A prominent Syrian political personality credited with close links to the country’s security establishment, Khaled al-Aboud launched a tirade in early May against Russia and Putin. Al-Aboud wrote, inter alia,

If Assad wanted it, Putin would have ended, and not just in Syria but in the region and the world, and the name ‘Putin’ would have been erased from Russian history forever.

Significantly, al-Aboud also showered praise on the role of Iran and Hezbollah and estimated that Assad gives precedence to relations with Tehran over Syria’s ties with Moscow.

The Russian motivation seems to be threefold. One, Putin seems frustrated that the military victories have not opened a pathway to political settlement in Syria—whereas Moscow is desperately keen to garner the victory in political and economic terms. Assad’s fixation about total victory is not helping matters.





Jeffrey said,

Our military presence, while small, is important for overall calculations. So we urge the Congress, the American people, the president to keep these forces on, but again this isn’t Afghanistan, this isn’t Vietnam, this isn’t a quagmire… My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians.

Jeffrey noted that “the Russian military has been successful in Syria, but argued ‘they don’t have a political way out of their problems’” with Assad. In some previous remarks made in March, Jeffrey was also on record while stating that “the U.S. aims to ‘make it very difficult’ for Russia to help the Syrian government achieve a military victory.” Jeffrey has been insisting that,

Assad must go.


Iran sees Syria as part of its ‘axis of resistance’ against the [U.S.] and Israel.


Jeffrey’s pointed reference to “quagmire” opens deep wounds in the Russian psyche. The Russian public will never condone such an outcome in Syria, and the raison d’être of the intervention in 2015 will come under close scrutiny sooner or later if the present stalemate continues.



The military victories in Syria have brilliantly advertised Russia’s credentials as an exporter of weaponry. In political and diplomatic terms, Russia’s relationships with Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the Gulf states have all deepened, and its prestige in the region has been greatly enhanced. The military bases in Syria provide a permanent presence for Russia in the Middle East for decades to come.



Yet, the pathetic part is that Assad’s trust in Putin must be badly shaken. Moscow has been less than fair to Assad by speaking ill of him behind his back—and that too to Jeffrey. At least, that is what Jeffrey kept insinuating in an exclusive interview recently with the Saudi establishment daily Asharq Al-Awsat.


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