It is less than five months since Bashar al-Assad was last welcomed to the Kremlin as a useful and dependable vassal, and only a few days since Russia was dismissing his enemies in Syria as mere “bandits” and “terrorists”.
Now Assad is back in Moscow as that most pathetic of exiles – a former dictator – and the Kremlin is being more polite about the “armed opposition” in Syria as it works behind the scenes to salvage what it can from 50 years of support for a brutal dynasty.
Assad’s plight may have made Russian president Vladimir Putin think back to 2014, when Ukraine’s autocratic leader Viktor Yanukovich fled to Moscow after his corrupt, Kremlin-backed rule sparked a pro-democracy revolution.
[ Rebels face task of preventing Syria from fracturing into fiefdomsOpens in new window ]
Russia annexed Crimea and fomented fighting in eastern Ukraine in response and, as the West sought to isolate him, Putin doubled down on his defiance in 2015 and ordered massive and indiscriminate bombing of Syria to defeat its rebels and ensure Assad retained power.
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He showed how far he would go to protect an ally and pursue Kremlin interests, in stark contrast to the way US president Barack Obama, two years earlier, had failed to punish Assad when he crossed a supposed US “red line” and used chemical weapons against his own people.
Moscow also sent troops and mercenaries to prop up Assad’s regime, ignoring western warnings that it was stepping into a “quagmire”, and in 2017 Putin flew into Syria and told them they could return home “victorious”.
Not only had Russia proved – as in Ukraine – that it was ready and able to use force to achieve its objectives, but it had also signed 49-year leases with Syria on an airbase at Hmeimim and a naval base at Tartous, giving it a foothold in the Middle East and a platform to pursue its growing military, commercial and political aims in Africa.
[ Sednaya prison: Hunt for underground cells in Syria’s ‘human slaughterhouse’Opens in new window ]
Now Assad has gone the same way as Yanukovich and Russia could be deprived of its bases, severely complicating its attempts to build influence and access to commodities in countries such as Libya, Mali, Niger and Central African Republic.
“Russia’s military presence in the Middle East region is hanging by a thread,” said Rybar, a military blogger on Telegram with close links to Moscow’s defence ministry and nearly 1.4 million subscribers.
“In reality, we need to understand that the militants will not stop. They will try to inflict the maximum damage, reputational and physical, on representatives of the Russian Federation, in particular to destroy our military bases,” he added.
The demise of Assad and Putin’s powerlessness to stop it will also reinforce a perception in many capitals that Russia is not as strong as it seemed to be a decade ago, largely because of the vast quantities of blood and treasure lost in Ukraine.
More leaders will now think twice about relying on Russian support, having seen not only how Assad was forced to flee, but also how Moscow did nothing in recent years to help its long-time ally Armenia in fighting with Turkey-backed Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
[ Ukraine war: Russia open to negotiations on certain terms, says MoscowOpens in new window ]
This is a bruising defeat for Putin just as he prepares to face pressure from incoming US president Donald Trump to end his invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainians fear Putin will salve his hurt pride by hammering them with more missiles this week, while Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya warned that “Assad’s collapse has also shaken Putin, making him less inclined to demonstrate flexibility with Ukraine.”
“The war in Ukraine has, to some extent, cost him Syria,” she said, “which reinforces his unwillingness to compromise.”
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