1. A Remember

Seventy six years ago, in July 1944, the Soviet Union and Syria – country that would gain its independence two years later, after the end of the French mandate instituted by the famous ”Sykes-Picot” colonial agreements – established diplomatic relations, thus marking the beginning of a period of bilateral relations that would last throughout a history of almost 89 years.

Starting with 1971, when the Alawite general Hafez Al-Assad came to power, Syria would become known as the country ruled continuously by the Assad Alawite clan, for a period including two distinct stages – Hafez Al-Assad’s presidency, from 1971 to his death in June 2000, and the “hereditary republic” starting on 17^th of July 2000, when his son, Bashar Bin Hafez Al-Assad was invested with the supreme position – president of Syria.

Bashar Al-Assad’s presidency of 20 years was not devoid of convulsions and chronic crises, thus:

-                  In September 2004, the United Nations adopted Resolution no. 1559 summoning Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon (14,000 people out of 40,000), following a 20 years old presence. By the end of April 2005, the last Syrian soldier left the Lebanese territory.

-                  On the 14^th of February 2005, the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, was assassinated. Although Bashar Al-Assad’s regime was blamed for it, a final verdict on the matter was never reached.

-                  On the 17^th of March 2011 the “Syrian Arab Spring” started. In order to prevent the recurrence of the domino effect that had already removed from power the regimes in four Arab countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the Yemen), the leadership in Damascus chooses from the start to repress the riots and protests by use of military force.

-                  Amid the chaos produced by war, the opponents of the Syrian regime are joined by two formidable radical Islamist forces – Al-Qaeda in Syria, also known as “Jabhat Al-Nusra” and the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria”, or “Daesh”. The Syrian Army is overwhelmed and on the verge of a disastrous collapse.

-                  On the 30^th of September 2015, the Russian Federation begins its military intervention in the Syrian civil war, supporting the Syrian Armed Forces at the request of the Damascus regime. In almost five years, the Russian intervention changes the balance of power in favour of the loyalists. The Syrian chessboard of war witnesses the military intervention of several regional forces – Iran, Turkey, the Lebanese Hezbollah, foreign combatants financed by regional powers, the Kurdish separatist minority, but also powers from outside the region, besides the Russian Federation: the United States, Great Britain, France and so on.

This devastating, internationalised war was written and talked about a lot, since it actively produced human casualties, material losses and unimaginable suffering. In measurable indicators, that means almost half a million people dead and missing, a few million refugees and internal displaced persons, as well as a financial aid for the post war reconstruction estimated at 400 billion US dollars.

Nine years after the start of the civil war, and thanks to the dynamic military assistance provided by Vladimir Putin, the Damascus regime controls over 60% of its national territory. Furthermore, media analyses and official political estimates – both in the Middle East and the Western community - say that the “key to the Syrian peace lies in Vladimir Putin’s pocket”, since the Russian Federation strengthened a sine die presence in Syria and mutatis mutandis in the Arab region of the Middle East.

During the long “honeymoon” that lasted for all five years of “brotherly fight” against the “global conspiracy” and for the “defence of Syria’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity” (according to Putin and Bashar), the relationship between the two evolved with very little disturbances from small misunderstandings, that were rapidly settled. However, the introduction of the Syrian dossier in the “era of diplomacy” and political actions brought along the first public disagreements between the Kremlin leader and the Damascus “commander-in-chief president”. It is true that at this – limited and controllable – outburst contributed several outside factors, such as the resolution that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons adopted on the 8^th of April 2020 to officially confirm, for the first time, the charges against the Syrian regime for having used, over the past three years, chemical weapons on their opponents on the battlefield.

Bashar Al-Assad                Asma Al-Assad                    Rami Makhlouf

More recently, Moscow caused annoyance by the public scandal which broke out at the top of the Assad clan between president Bashar and his maternal cousin, the oligarch Rami Makhluf, believed to be the richest businessman in Syria but also one of the most corrupt. They thus broke the code of silence requiring that family misunderstandings be dealt with inside the family – a norm abided by even when old Hafez Al-Assad accursed (in 1984) his own brother, Dr. Rifaat Al-Assad, for mutiny and thirst of power and exiled him for life. However, the whole affair was kept quiet. We are now talking about a public conflict where, apparently, first lady Asma Al-Assad is involved. However, such “incidents” are not significant enough to point to a possible divorce between two loves almost a century old.

2. Red Paintball Shooting

The Kremlin’s dissatisfaction with Bashar Al-Assad’s “overreactions” has led to the impression that the Russian leader was playing a red paintball game, where the ammunition breaks on impact, thus marking the enemy with the colour of the blood – a warning without injuring the target. The trigger was not pulled by Putin, but by the media in his entourage, such as the publication “Ria Fan” – owned by the businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who the Russian streets see as “Vladimir Putin’s handyman” and owner of the “Wagner Group”, whose paramilitary were present on the Syrian front alongside Bashar Al-Assad’s armed forces.

In the absence of an official Russian position, disagreements were somewhat inevitable – in Russia – over the nature of the relations between Russia and Syria, and whether the Russian Federation still needs Bashar Al-Assad playing a role in Moscow’s regional strategy. Against this background, though, an official reaction came when the pro-government press agency “Novosti” published a series of interviews and analyses done with the participation of several Russian personalities close to the Russian power circles. The leitmotif of this initiative was whether Russia still needed its relation with Syria. Bashar was accused of being obstinate and inflexible with regard to implementing the reform that Russia desperately needed with a view to relieve itself of the burden represented by Syria, while keeping intact the privileges and influence it had obtained over the past five years. The conclusion reached by “Novosti” was that “for now”, Bashar is “indispensable” in Russia’s relation with Syria. A widely used phrase in the Russian media. „Svobodnaya Presa”, though, has brought a supplementary nuance according to which, “Bashar is indispensable as long as he has no successor or no one has been found to replace him” – someone who is powerful, influential and capable of successfully taking the necessary steps to complete the Syrian political process as laid down by Russia in Astana and under the auspices of the international framework offered by the Geneva process.

When it comes to Syria’s reconstruction, Vladimir Putin asks his Syrian partner to be open to some lines of action in the near future and in the context of the presidential elections scheduled to take place (in Syria) in 2021. We are referring to drafting and adopting a new constitution, accepting dialogue and negotiations with the opposition’s political parties and forces, and giving up the inflexibility Bashar has been showing in his relationship with the international community (which, among other things, has been called to finance the burdensome process of economic and social reconstruction and revival of Syria. Nonetheless, as far as Bashar Al-Assad is concerned, he strongly believes that Syria and his regime have won the war – a victory that leaves no room for compromise. At the same time, President Bashar Al-Assad strongly believes that the war in Syria was not caused by domestic economic and social mismanagement, but was the result of a cosmic conspiracy. Consequently, he is convinced that since the catastrophe that started nine years ago was not caused by internal political shortcomings, but by foreign conspiracies, it is only logical that the political regime must stay to resume and then maintain Syria’s course towards prosperity.

3. Zero Problems...

What happens currently between the Russian Federation and Syria is not new, neither to Putin nor to Bashar. And it is certainly not the sign of a split. There is something, though, and that is each of the two allies believes to be a winner of the war and of Syria. However, they are both aware that Bashar without Putin would lose his position and future, while Putin without Bashar could lose the entire Middle East.

At the same time, the chronicle of the Russian-Syrian cooperation in the civil war includes a phrase that is still valid; it was uttered at the time by president Putin and has been repeated on several occasions by the head of the Russian diplomacy, Sergey Lavrov, according to which, “Russia did not come to Syria to support Bashar Al-Assad, but to defend Syria’s integrity and unity, as well as that of its people”.

This is why it can be stated that the current stage of the relationship between Moscow and Damascus can be labelled as “zero problems”, a phrase first used by the former Turkish prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, Ahmet Davutoglu.

It remains to be seen whether in the predictable future the following phrase will stay valid or not: Davutoglu left, the problems remained and multiplied.