It was magnanimous of Russian President Vladimir Putin to order a “humanitarian pause” in the daily massacre he has helped to orchestrate in the rebel-held Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta.
As befits a man who is used to getting his own way, Putin wants to demonstrate that he does not need the United Nations to tell him how to conduct himself in Syria’s brutal conflict. This, after all, is someone who has brazenly ignored all the UN’s strictures with regard to his other military adventures in places like Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Indeed, it was only recently that Russian diplomats were doing their level best to frustrate diplomatic efforts at the UN Security Council to arrange a ceasefire for eastern Ghouta.
One direct consequence of the Kremlin’s prevarication tactics is that hundreds more civilians have perished under the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s relentless assault on the rebel-held district, with pro-Al Assad forces being accused of resorting once again to barrel bombs and chlorine gas.
But Putin also has an election campaign to win. So, when the rest of the world is clamouring for a ceasefire to alleviate the sufferings of the Syrian people, it behoves him to show who’s really in charge in Syria.
The Russian president regards the Syrian conflict, which is Russia’s largest overseas military intervention since Afghanistan in the 1980s, as being very much his war, one that he seeks to portray as a major victory for Russia’s armed forces.
The problem, though, is that it is nothing of the kind.
Sure, the Russian military has played its role in helping to push back the rebel forces that, at one point, in the summer of 2014, were hammering at the gates of Damascus. The destruction of the former rebel stronghold of Aleppo, for example, which was pulverised into submission, following an intensive aerial bombardment by Russian warplanes, stands as a testament to the methods Moscow has been prepared to deploy.
Yet, when examined more closely, Putin’s claim to have achieved a significant victory in Syria has a decidedly hollow ring to it. The Russians may have preserved their hold on their military bases at Tartus and Latakia, but they have done so by allying themselves with a regime that now enjoys international pariah status. No matter how long Al Assad and his gang of Alawite thugs survive in office, they will forever be regarded as the architects of the most deplorable acts of barbarity committed in the 21st century; wanton acts of cruelty that, if there is any justice in the world, will one day see them all arraigned before the International Criminal Court in The Hague to stand trial for war crimes, just as happened to the perpetrators of bloodshed in the Balkans in the Nineties.
The Russians must also fret about just how reliable an ally the Al Assad regime will prove to be. The long-standing relationship between Damascus and Moscow, which dates back decades to the height of the Cold War, has always been more of a marriage of convenience than an ideological meeting of minds. Having a country like Russia acting as a bulwark against America’s regional dominance has helped Syria maintain its distinctive Baathist political identity, while positioning Damascus as a rallying point for extremist terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Al Assad regime’s support for such groups, however, puts it at odds with Moscow’s more moderate agenda for the Arab world, one where the Kremlin aspires to forge stronger ties with countries like Egypt that hitherto have been pro-western in their outlook.
The Russians will also be wary of Iran’s growing military influence in Syria where, in a re-run of its takeover of southern Lebanon in the 1980s, Tehran is building what is in effect a state-within-a-state. Under the guise of supporting the Al Assad regime, Iran has established an impressive network of military bases across the length and breadth of Syria, including its own air strips and training camps.
While on paper Russia and Iran are supposed to be allies committed to keeping Al Assad in power, the relationship is strained to the extent that, when Israel deems it necessary to attack Iranian positions in Syria, the Russians do little to dissuade them from intervening.
Another factor that suggests Russia’s intervention in Syria is not the success Putin wants the electorate to believe it is will be the mounting death toll of Russians participating in the conflict. An estimated 300 Russian mercenaries were killed earlier this month when they became involved in a firefight with United States forces, where they were greatly out-numbered.
Consequently, there will now be hundreds of grieving families in Russia who realise that Putin’s military adventure in Syria has come at a terrible price. And it cannot be long before the rest of the country discovers that their so-called military triumph in Syria was little more than a pyrrhic victory.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2018
Con Coughlin is the Daily Telegraph’s defence editor and chief foreign affairs columnist.
