Fall of Assad puts Russia’s large military footprint in Syria at risk

Russia’s military bases in Syria were a major asset for Moscow before the Assad regime’s stunning collapse over the weekend. Now, they could be a major liability.

The Russian military sites in Syria include a naval port on the Mediterranean Sea to berth submarines and an airfield to project power across the Middle East and Africa. But after rebels ousted Kremlin-backed President Bashar al-Assad, the future of these installations is uncertain.

The Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, now in control of the Syrian state, has criticized the regime’s foreign supporters. Russia backed Assad in Syria’s 13-year civil war, hitting rebels with airstrikes from 2015 on and prolonging his reign.

Russia on Monday was doing “everything that is necessary and everything that is possible” to contact those in power in Syria to ensure the security of its military bases, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Other nations also maintain military facilities in Syria. The U.S. base at Tanf, on the Syrian border with Jordan, has housed Special Operations forces; Turkey has bases in Idlib and elsewhere in the north. But Russia’s holdings are far larger in scale, strategic significance and vulnerability.

Russia’s military footprint in Syria

The most notable Russian bases are along the Mediterranean coast: a naval base in Tartus and an airfield at Hmeimim in Latakia governorate.

Russia built the Cold War-era Tartus base in 1977. It stood mostly idle from the fall of the Soviet Union until Russia intervened in the civil war in 2015. After that Russia signed a 49-year lease agreement and expanded the facility.

The construction of the Hmeimim air base at a Syrian airport in 2015 was a sign of the deepening relationship between Moscow and Damascus. It is also bound by a 49-year lease, signed in 2017.

Russia claims to have deployed tens of thousands of troops to Syria. While it appears fewer have been stationed there since the start of the war in Ukraine, some troops remain.

Russia has had several other military facilities in Syria, according to the defense intelligence firm Janes, including two air bases in the country’s center and two sites for S-400 air defense systems.

Russian troops were already vacating bases in Manbij and Kobane, the Syrian news outlet North Press Agency reported Monday. Manbij was once a U.S. base; Russia took it over in 2019 after the United States abandoned it. Russia used the Kobane base to monitor a ceasefire agreement with Turkey.

There has been no evidence yet of a large-scale withdrawal from Tartus or Hmeimim. The loss of Tartus would have a significant impact on the Russian navy, which attempts to maintain a permanent presence in the eastern Mediterranean.

With the loss of that port, and similar facilities in the Black Sea vulnerable to the war in Ukraine, Janes analysts suggested Monday, Russia would have to redeploy ships and submarines to Baltic Sea.

Russia used the Hmeimim air base as a hub not only to strike Syrian rebels, but also to support mercenaries in Libya, the Central African Republic and Sudan, the Russian journalist and analyst Anton Mardasov wrote in 2020 for the Middle East Institute.

Other nations have bases, too

During the civil war, several foreign groups, including Assad allies Iran and Hezbollah, joined the fighting.

The United States established the Tanf outpost after the Islamic State seized land at the border in 2015. The garrison has been used to train U.S.-aligned rebel groups in Syria.

The United States has also sent troops to areas in the northeast controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. There were 900 U.S. troops in Syria, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters last week, most of them in this northeastern region.

Turkey, is also a prominent force in the north, through its support of the rebel Syrian National Army, widely considered a proxy for Ankara, and its own troops, who have established bases in and around Idlib, an HTS stronghold.

Turkey’s principal interest in Syria is its opposition to the Syrian Democratic Forces, which has ties to Kurdish groups within Turkey. While people in Damascus this weekend celebrated the departure of Assad and the arrival of the rebels, the Syrian National Army seized control of a Kurdish-controlled area in Manbij, according to local accounts.