For Russia, as for Iran, last month’s fall of the 54-year-old Assad dynasty in Syria was a major geo-strategic setback. Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s sudden defeat threatened Russia’s important military presence in the eastern Mediterranean.
Now Moscow is believed to be trying to negotiate a continued presence with the new Syrian authorities. But it is also transferring military equipment from Syria to nearby Libya, apparently to establish or strengthen Russia’s presence in that country as a new hub for its African operations. This could seriously damage efforts to resolve Libya’s protracted conflict.
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The end of al-Assad’s regime also has repercussions for Russia’s growing presence across Africa. Moscow’s naval and air bases in Syria have been the hubs for supplying Russia’s continental operations – mainly in Libya and also in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic and Sudan.
Mr al-Assad hosted a major Russian military presence in Syria with a warm-water naval base in the port of Tartus, an air base at Khmeimim to the north near the port of Latakia, and a helicopter base at Qamishli in the far northeast.
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“The rapid collapse of the Assad regime in Syria – a regime that the Kremlin helped prop up since 2015 – is a strategic political defeat for Moscow and has thrown the Kremlin into a crisis as it seeks to retain its strategic military basing in Syria,” the Institute for the Study of War said on 9 December.
“Putin … intervened on behalf of Assad in 2015 to secure Russian military bases in Syria, support Russia’s wider efforts to project power in the Mediterranean and Red Seas, increase its global footprint in the Middle East and Africa, and threaten [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s] southern flank.
“Russia is attempting to secure its bases in Syria as opposition forces come to power, but Russia’s continued military presence in the country is not guaranteed. [This] especially as Russia’s actions in support of Assad over the past nine years have likely undermined Moscow’s ability to form a lasting, positive relationship with ruling Syrian opposition groups,” the institute said.
Uncertainty about who might constitute the new government also probably complicates these negotiations. And so perhaps as a precaution, Moscow has begun shifting military resources to Libya, where it had already started reinforcing its military presence in 2023/24.
“Four weeks ago, Russia experienced a clear setback in Syria – an outcome it had not planned for, since losing Assad undermines a key logistical hub that, for nine years, supported its operations in Libya and beyond into Sub-Saharan Africa,” an analyst at The Sentry, a US-based investigative and policy organisation, told ISS Today.
“In a bid to preserve its African operations, Moscow has been bolstering its footprint in Libya to compensate for its deteriorating circumstances in Syria in recent weeks. And so far, it has done so without introducing a naval element – at least not yet.
“Over the last four weeks, Russia has been moving substantial amounts of military resources by air to Libya, from Syria, from Russia and from Belarus.”
Several other reports in mainstream media as well as intelligence sites confirm several flights of large Russian Air Force cargo aircraft from Khmeimim Air Base in Syria to Russia’s al-Khadim near Benghazi in eastern Libya in the last week of December. They speculate the planes were carrying military equipment.
This week, Ukrainian intelligence sources who asked to remain anonymous and other analysts said several Russian ships were scheduled to dock in Tartus. They said that the roll on-roll off Sparta and Sparta II would be used to transport military equipment to Libya, though some would be transported back to Russia.
The bolstering of Russia’s military presence in Libya threatens to perpetuate, if not aggravate, the conflict in that country. Russia has for years backed the eastern strongman General Khalifa Haftar of the Benghazi-based government in its protracted struggle with the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli.
In December, Abdul Hamid Dabaiba, Prime Minister of the government of national unity in Tripoli, strongly objected to Russia reinforcing its Libyan bases. He said this was turning Libya into a base for major-power rivalries and would complicate the country’s internal crisis.
It should also be noted that in terms of the peace agreements among rival Libyan parties, all foreign militaries should have left Libya long ago.
“The sudden collapse of the Assad regime also raises questions about Russia’s ability to continue providing military and security support to its allies,” says Denys Reva, an Institute for Security Studies Researcher. “It seems that Russia might currently be overstretched and unable to spare additional resources.”
He says that if Russia were also to lose its access to Libya, that would undermine Moscow’s ability to appropriately support and supply its troops in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
“The Russians have definitely seen their circumstances degrade in Syria,” says The Sentry’s analyst. “Even if one assumes that they stay in Latakia and Tartus, the environment has become more uncertain, less convenient and riskier.
“By strengthening its footprint in Libya, Russia may be attempting to compensate for that deterioration in Syria – or at least part of it. If it didn’t do so, Moscow would be risking a fragilisation of its missions in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
For Africa, the net effect of Mr al-Assad’s exit remains uncertain. A weakening of Russia’s military presence on the continent would arguably be positive, given its performance in the Sahel especially. In Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, Russia is propping up military regimes that took power via coups, and is accused of gross abuses against civilians, without any visible improvement in curbing terrorism.
For Libya, the likely consequences seem to be more unambiguously negative. By switching the focus of its military operations to Libya, Russia has acquired an even stronger incentive to entrench itself in that country and perpetuate the internal conflict, as Dabaiba warned.
Peter Fabricius, Consultant, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Pretoria
(This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish).
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