In connection with the fall of the Assad regime over the weekend, Ukraine's intelligence service stated that "Russian forces are conducting a rapid evacuation from Syria", reported, among others, Ukrainian Euromaidan Press.
Unverified images on social media are said to show both that Russian soldiers are fleeing westward within Syria, and that Russian planes and ships are completely leaving the country.
Unbelievable claims
The reason would be partly that the agreement on Russian military presence – with the two large bases Khmeimim and Tartus – concluded with Bashar al-Assad is now as null and void as his rule. Partly, there is a screaming need for the military resources on the home front, in the war of aggression against Ukraine.
However, reports of large-scale retreats are also dismissed as obviously unbelievable. "Most of the resources" remain at Khmeimim and Tartus, writes Dara Massicot, Russia expert at the think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on X. "If an evacuation occurs, it will be visible".
She clarifies that the large warships have no reasonable way home, since Turkey has closed the Bosphorus to the Black Sea for them.
Some equipment could be taken home by air, but it would require "hundreds of flights with the Il-76 and Antonov-124 cargo planes, not the handful that have been seen", she writes, and adds: "When Russian forces were deployed in Syria in 2015, they flew almost 300 flights in two weeks, and that was before the presence was expanded".
Mediator role?
In other words, Russia's main role in Syria is not necessarily over.
The Russian perspective is that they highly need this presence, says Anna Borshchevskaya at the think tank Washington Institute in a TV interview with Israeli I24.
She refers, among other things, to the fact that it is Russia's only direct contact with the Mediterranean and North Africa. Plus the prestige issue. But since the Moscow regime appears to be just as caught off guard as everyone else by the development, the question marks are currently difficult to clarify.
How will the Kremlin navigate, try to rescue the situation? I think they will try again to play some kind of mediator role, says Borshchevskaya.
Henrik Samuelsson/TT
Facts: Russian bases in Syria
TTTT
Khmeimim and Tartus are two military bases that Russia has invested heavily in over the past ten years.
Tartus is a naval base with longer roots – it was established in the 1970s as a Soviet counterweight to the US military presence in the eastern Mediterranean.
Khmeimim (named after a Syrian village that can also be spelled in other ways, e.g. Humaymim) is an airbase that was established as recently as 2015. It was built next to Latakia Airport on Syria's Mediterranean coast. The purpose was to serve as a hub for a Russian military offensive that would help Bashar al-Assad's regime to victory in the civil war – a plan that until last week seemed to have succeeded.
