Russia has no plans to rescue Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from advancing rebel forces, according to reports.
Bloomberg News quoted a source close to the Kremlin saying that Vladimir Putin was disgusted by reports that the Syrian Army was fleeing its positions.
“Russia doesn’t have a plan to save Assad and doesn’t see one emerging as long as the Syrian president’s army continues to abandon its positions,” the source said.
The jihadist-led rebel forces captured Hama on Thursday night after seizing Syria’s second city, Aleppo, last week. On Friday, they were advancing on the city of Homs, which lies on the road to Damascus.
The Kremlin told all Russian citizens to flee on the next available commercial flight.
Charles Lister, director of the Syria programme at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said that Assad had relied on Putin to save him in 2015 but his future now looked bleak.
“Russia doesn’t seem able, or perhaps even willing, to save him,” he said.
Iran has a military presence in Homs and other parts of Syria and on Friday, Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said he would support Assad “to the extent necessary”, without elaborating.
Credit: ragipsoylu/X
But Iran may have been weakened by direct and indirect clashes with US-backed Israel and its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon, and has been degraded by a major Israeli offensive.
The lightning-fast rebel strike has not only strained relations between Russia and Syria but it has also made the Kremlin nervous about the safety of its military bases. Fighterbomber, a prominent aviation military blogging channel, has warned The Kremlin will struggle to evacuate its main air base in Syria before rebels attack and capture it.
Fighterbomber issued the warning after Jihadist rebels captured the city of Hama on Thursday evening, opening up a clear route 75 miles west to the Khmeimim airbase near the Mediterranean Sea.
“It is almost impossible to evacuate the base. In the best case, it is possible to evacuate most of the personnel, documentation and ferry serviceable aircraft,” he said. “All other property will remain at the bases.”
It appears that the lightning rebel strike that has routed Syrian government forces across the country over the past week was never considered feasible. Emergency evacuation plans were not drawn up.
According to Fighterbomber there are only two reserve airfields in Syria which he described as a “critical minimum”. This means that instead of flying aircraft off vulnerable airstrips, they need to be driven to the Russian naval base of Tartus, 50 miles away, and then loaded onto transport ships.
Alexander Kots, another influential Russian military blogger, said that Russian jets could not do much to halt the advance of the rebels without support on the ground from the Syrian army.
“And the Syrian army is not yet showing any particular readiness to fight for its country.”
And then there is the threat of rebel drone strikes on Russian bases in Syria.
When Putin ordered his forces to intervene in the Syrian Civil War in 2015, drones were not a feature. But the war in Ukraine has turbo-charged their use on the battlefield.
“The Khmeimim airfield is not a multi-story industrial facility with basements, it is a field with easily-assembled houses on top, which will cease to function as soon as the enemy either approaches the range of artillery fire, or the range of drones,” said Fighterbomber.
Putin intervened in the civil war in Syria in a carefully-calculated move designed to give the Kremlin an easy foreign military win and to project force.
Part of the plan was to set up a string of military bases that could be used to irritate the West. The two most important bases are the airbase at Khmeimim and the naval base at Tartus, 50 miles south. Reports said that Russian naval ships have already been seen leaving Tartus, although Western officials do not believe it has been abandoned.
Last week rebels captured Aleppo and overran a couple of nearby smaller Russian bases. Putin promptly sacked the main Russian commander in Syria and ordered his Air Force to intensify their attacks on rebels but Dara Massicot, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, said that this doesn’t appear to have worked.
She explained that defending its bases, vital for Putin’s North Africa and Middle East ambitions, will be a priority for the Kremlin.
Rebels advance in Syria’s strategically important province of Homs on Friday – ANADOLU
“Watch for signs that mercenaries are redeploying to Syria. By now, Russia probably has made its assessments and is executing plans,” she said.
Putin has pledged to his Iranian allies that he will support Assad but analysts have said he will be frustrated with the renewed fighting in Syria because it will distract him from his war in Ukraine, which is a priority project.
Russian military bloggers with strong links to Russian forces have also openly started to question the quality and commitment of the Syrian army.
Rybar, a Russian military blogger, said that rebel forces were still advancing rapidly and that Syrian military claims of a counterattack were lies.
“There are no sensible reports of battles or any resistance from the Syrian troops at all,” Rybar said.
Rybar also said that it anticipated an attack on Damascus within the next few days.
“The pace at which the militants are moving from the north suggests that Homs will not last long. Next they will likely target Damascus,“ it said.
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