The fall of Bashar al-Asad’s regime has led to several questions for Russia regarding the possibility of continuity to its military cooperation agreements with Syria, especially with reference to those guaranteeing the use of naval and air bases in the country.
Russia’s military presence in Syria dates back to the 1970s, when the Soviet Union’s naval forces left Egypt and moved to the Syrian port of Tartus and Khmeimim airport. The bases, which grew over time, were transferred to the Russian Federation upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, then entering a phase of temporary decline. In 2005, however, thanks in part to the cancellation of much of Syria’s debt to Russia, the Damascus government allowed Russia to expand the Tartus base and again encourage the growth of Moscow’s naval presence in the Mediterranean.
The Russian bases in Tartus and Latakia represented the main logistical hub of the military personnel rushed to support the Syrian regime after the outbreak of the 2011 civil war, which was followed by the opening of 3 additional large and 18 smaller bases in the north of the country, as well as 93 smaller outposts.
In January 2017 was signed a new agreement between the Russian and Syrian governments, providing for further expansion of the perimeter of the bases and setting a 49-year time limit of free use and guaranteed extraterritoriality, while the Russian Defense Ministry announced the formation of permanent groups in the country.
However, the rapid evolution of the Syrian crisis, which between late November and early December 2024 led to the abrupt fall of Bashar al-Asad’s regime, resulted in a profound transformation of the Russian role in Syria.
After intense air and missile bombardments conducted by Russian forces present in Syrian bases in an attempt to defend the regime, in the aftermath of the victory of opposition forces the threat of hostile actions against naval and air installations prompted Russia to quickly evacuate the five ships and submarine present in the port of Tartus. At the same time, the number of aircraft deployed at the Khmeimim base was considerably reduced, also initiating the rapid abandonment of the northern bases, which in fact quickly fell in territories under the full control of rebel groups and without any support from government forces.
At the same time, Syria’s new transitional political authorities, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) formations, in conveying a new conciliatory narrative both domestically and internationally, blatantly indicated a willingness to sever the strong ties the deposed regime had established with Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. This imposed Russian forces a cautious further reduction of their presence in Syria, while waiting to formally clarify with the new government in Damascus at least the fate of the bases in Tartus and Khmeimim.
Syrian sources, difficult to verify at present, reported talks with Russia aimed at granting a 75-day period within which Moscow’s troops must completely demobilize its presence in the country. At the same time official Russian government sources reported of informal talks that, in the Russian perception, would end with a de facto assurance that the 2019 agreements could remain in force.
The Russian government’s expectations, however, appear to have been further frustrated on Dec. 16 by the statements made by Obeida Arnaout, the spokesperson of the political department of the new Syrian Transitional Authorities, who openly called on Russia to reconsider its military presence in the country in the aftermath of the country’s changed political orientation.
In the meantime, a massive logistical operation has been launched by Moscow’s Defense Ministry to initiate the transfer of military equipment present in Syria, through an air and naval bridge, which is still ongoing. This operation has transferred the bulk of the assets toward bases located on Russian territory and a minority portion – again according to sources that are difficult to confirm – toward eastern Libya.
Indeed, for some time now, the Russian government has been engaged in a major build-up of its military capacity in the Cyrenaica regions, by virtue of its well-established relationship with General Khalifa Haftar, while rumors of new negotiations aimed at facilitating the opening of a Russian naval base in the Libyan port of Benghazi are becoming increasingly insistent.
The loss of the port of Tartus and the Khmeimim airport, in fact, would result in the sharp reduction of Russia’s naval capacity in the Mediterranean, imposing the need to identify a new regional counterpart with which to define the possibility of developing replacement logistics bases. Russia’s relations in the region, however, reduce the pool of possible alternatives to the ultimate loss of bases in Syria to only two countries – Algeria and eastern Libya.
