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Russia to withdraw majority of forces from Syria

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu to start the withdrawal of forces from Syria starting Tuesday. “I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished. That is why I order to start withdrawal of the main part of our military group from the territory…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu to start the withdrawal of forces from Syria starting Tuesday.

“I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished. That is why I order to start withdrawal of the main part of our military group from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic starting from tomorrow,” Putin said on Monday during a meeting with Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

RT and several other news outfits are reporting that Putin has ordered the redeployment of the majority of Russian forces from Syria.

     The Russians don’t have a lot of allies, Syria being one of the few. And thus they were absolutely committed to sustaining the Assad regime. When you only have a handful of allies, you can’t afford to blithely let them fall by the wayside. So the primary goal of the Russian intervention was to stave off the collapse of the Assad regime. To that end, almost all the Russian airstrikes wee against anti-Assad forces, that is, the groups the US has been supporting for four years now. The occasional strike against ISIS aligned forces were either in support of Assad, or simply to provide political cover to mute criticism by the Obama administration.

But the Russian military, while it has recovered from its near total collapse of the 1990s, is still nowhere near as strong as it once was. The Russian deployment was a major effort, consuming many of the best Russian jet squadrons. And a deployment of the best of the best can only be sustained for so long. Jets need maintenance, and crews need rest. That doesn’t even take into consideration the costs of operations, which a cash strapped Russia has trouble sustaining. Low oil prices mean Russia’s cash flow could hardly sustain expensive foreign operations for long without impacting spending on other programs.

And then there’s the costs Russia is sustaining conducting operations in eastern Ukraine. The Russian forces are quite over extended, and a withdrawal from Syria will alleviate some of the worst of the symptoms.

Having said that, if the Assad regime again begins to be imperiled, you can be sure the Russians will return.

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Responses to “Russia to withdraw majority of forces from Syria”

  1. Esli

    So much for all those articles about a Russian “quagmire” or “another Afghanistan.” Maybe Putin has an opposition party demanding an exit strategy and he caved.

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  2. Krag

    My first thought was the poor Baltics now. Russia doesn’t have a deep bench, and a short timeline to accomplish military goals.
    I won’t be surprised if things get very exciting in Europe two or three months from now.

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  3. ultimaratioregis

    @Krag,
    Some smart money betting on that very point. These ground units and squadrons just had a live-fire workup, and now they are headed for the vicinity of the Oblast. The Russian military is not the military of the Cold War’s height, to be sure, but neither is NATO’s. In their Western Military District, Russia has an overwhelming advantage in combat power, is closer to the starting line, and has the air defense systems to make NATO/Western air interdiction costly. Oh, and US leadership is seen quite reasonably as being spineless, lacking the will, and soon, the means to do much about Russian moves in the Baltic.

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