Russia’s military intervention in Syria offers clues to how Vladimir Putin wants to wield power abroad, as has been seen in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Anand_Gopal_ discusses the two conflicts.
and elsewhere, and is currently at work on a book about the conflict. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed Russian military strategy, why Ukraine has proved more difficult for Russian forces than Syria, and what the Syrian intervention suggests about how Putin sees Russia’s place in the world.
Yeah, it was clear very quickly that it was a game changer. First, it was primarily because of Russia that the regime was able to retake all of Aleppo and then also was able to retake areas in the Damascus countryside that had been opposition strongholds. And they did this primarily through overwhelming air power. So their campaign in Syria was largely an air campaign. We think there were, and still are, thousands of Russian soldiers on the ground, but they weren’t really leading the fight.
So you had a few thousand Russian soldiers. We don’t know the exact number because Moscow doesn’t release them. Some of them are military police, others are working closely with the Syrian regime forces, others are involved in calling in air strikes. Then you also have private military contractors—Russian private military contractors—such as the Wagner Group, which is very closely linked to the Russian state but is, I guess, technically independent. And so they are active in the country.
In the opposition area, they’re viewed as occupiers. And I think they were understood as really the power behind the throne, that the Assad government would probably not have survived until today without the Russians. Even the Iranian support, I think, would not have been sufficient. So it was really Russia that saved the Assad regime. And so Syrians who risked their lives to fight against the regime see Russia as kind of the source of the dictatorship.
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