CHAPTER TEN

Enter Russia: Putin Raises the Stakes

There is no other solution to the Syrian crisis than strengthening the effective government structures and rendering them help in fighting terrorism, but at the same time urging them to engage in positive dialogue with the rational opposition and conduct reform.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, 24 September 2015.1

Half an hour’s drive from Latakia, Syria’s major port city and an Assad stronghold, sits the Khmeimim airbase. Until summer 2015 it was an unremarkable, neglected strip of asphalt. Then, in late August, the Russians came. Cargo planes filled with military equipment and building supplies steadily arrived. Despite Foreign Minister Lavrov’s insistence that this was nothing additional to Russia’s pre-existing commitments to the Assad regime, satellite imagery showed an ever increasing military build-up: the runway was re-laid, a new aircraft control tower built, defences improved and new housing units constructed. Soon afterwards US officials noted that Russian aircraft and tank landing ships had been sent to Moscow’s naval base in Tartous. On 14 September, a Pentagon spokesman declared that construction in Khmeimim amounted to a new Russian ‘forward air operating base’.² It gradually dawned on the US and Assad’s other enemies that this was an extraordinary move. Earlier that year the regime’s overstretched and undermanned military had suffered some of its worst losses in years. The rebels had appeared resurgent, capturing Idlib in the north and pressuring Deraa in the south, ISIS had captured and ransacked the desert city of Palmyra, and some were predicting that at long last Assad was close to collapse. Now, a superpower had thrown its air force behind Damascus, deploying the Russian military outside the former Soviet Union for the first time since the end of the Cold War.

On 30 September Russian planes from Khmeimim bombed targets in Homs, Hama and Quneitra provinces.³ Thereafter, they launched multiple attacks, with the Russian military claiming well over 6,000 sorties in the first four months.4 While Moscow insisted it was hitting ISIS, it primarily targeted the non-ISIS rebels, with ground offensives from October coordinated with regime, Iranian, Hezbollah and other pro-regime troops to roll back rebel gains. Wrong-footed, the White House rapidly sought to revive Syria’s flailing peace process. John Kerry hurriedly courted Lavrov to back what became the Vienna Process: a commitment by international actors – including Iran for the first time – to a negotiated solution. From this emerged a fragile ceasefire and a new round of peace talks, Geneva III. Yet with pro-regime forces making gains on the ground, many questioned whether Moscow, Tehran or Damascus were in any mood to make serious concessions. After five years of stalemated conflict, Russia’s dramatic intervention appeared to have tipped the balance of power.

This chapter will consider why Russia suddenly raised the stakes in this way and the consequences for the Syrian civil war. It will note the importance of the rebel resurgence of spring 2015 in provoking real fears of Assad’s collapse in Moscow and Tehran. Similarly the nature and scale of the intervention will be discussed, and the logic behind Putin’s move. The resulting Vienna Process and accompanying ceasefire and peace talks will be also be assessed. In doing so, it will be suggested that while Russia’s intervention likely prevented any prospect of sudden regime collapse, it did not change the fundamental structure of the civil war and thus was unlikely to lead to a decisive regime military victory. However, it may have created a better negotiating position for pro-Assad forces – indeed, this may have been Putin’s intention.

Rebel resurgence

Russia’s intervention was prompted by a series of setbacks for the regime in the first half of 2015. Assad’s manpower shortage, exacerbated in 2014 by the departure of Iraqi Shia militiamen, was increasingly felt on the battlefield. Regime offensives in Aleppo and the south in February 2015 soon ran out of steam as rebels counter-attacked. Then, after the regime reduced its presence in the city, rebel forces captured Idlib on 28 March, only the second provincial capital to be lost by Assad.⁵ This was the work of a new Idlib rebel coalition of seven armed groups, the Jaysh al-Fateh (Army of Conquest). Led by Ahrar and Nusra but including some local Muslim Brotherhood and FSA-aligned moderates, the formation and its success was due to both local and external factors.

Locally, the leading force was Ahrar who, according to analyst Charles Lister, initiated discussions with other rebels about the possibility of a unified coalition in the Idlib area in December 2014. Ahrar had recovered quickly from a bomb attack that killed many of its key leaders, including founder Hassan Abboud, the previous September and deployed a ‘mergers and acquisitions policy’ of absorbing smaller militias to become one of the largest groups. Indeed, on the eve of the Idlib assault, it merged with Ahmed Issa al-Sheikh’s Suqour al-Sham, who were strong in the province.6 Moreover, since November Ahrar had received increased logistical and military support from Turkey, which had tilted in favour of the Salafist group after the repeated failings of the moderates and when it became clear that the US was too distracted by ISIS to object. Once formed, the Jaysh al-Fateh produced what Lister calls ‘a level of inter-factional coordination that had arguably not been seen before in Syria’. It possessed sophisticated weaponry, with Ahrar armed by Turkey, Nusra utilising the stock of US-supplied TOW anti-tank missiles captured from Harakat al-Hazm and several smaller FSA-aligned groups like Liwa Forsan al-Haq offering support with weapons directly supplied by the CIA.⁷ Jaysh al-Fateh went on to capture Jisr al-Shughour in late April and by the end of May had secured all of Idlib province bar one airbase and two Shia villages, al-Fuah and Kafraya.

Externally, a Turkish–Saudi rapprochement facilitated the coalition. On 23 January 2015, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died and was succeeded surprisingly smoothly by his brother, Salman. The new king oversaw a more aggressive and activist foreign policy. On 26 March he authorised a major bombing campaign in Yemen against rebels led by former President Saleh and Houthi militants, believed to be supported by Iran, who threatened the Saudi-backed government. Much of this activism was led by the king’s ambitious son, Mohammad bin Salman (MbS), appointed Defence Minister and, in April, second in line to the throne after MbN. Courting the new regime, Erdoğan visited Salman on 2 March, easing tensions between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. While Riyadh played no direct role in Jaysh al-Fateh’s formation, its acquiescence was important in legitimising its rebel allies’ cooperation with Nusra in the coalition – previously forbidden under King Abdullah. Riyadh’s endorsement was seen a month later when a key ally, Jaysh al-Islam’s Zahran Alloush, travelled to Istanbul to meet with leaders of the Jaysh al-Fateh, including Ahrar.⁸

Meanwhile, the regime saw its greatest internal disruption since summer 2012, when head of the Political Security Directorate, Rustum Ghazali, was mysteriously arrested in March and then died in April. Accounts differ over whether he was planning on defecting, had challenged the regime for its increased reliance on Iran, or simply fell out with another regime insider over smuggling profits. Whatever the truth, his death hinted at discord in the higher echelons of the regime, prompting outside speculation that collapse was a step closer.9 Piling misery on Assad, on 13 May ISIS launched a successful attack on the desert city of Palmyra (known locally as Tadmour). Taking advantage of Assad redeploying forces to the Idlib front, ISIS swept from the east to capture the city by 26 May, once again threatening the key Shaer gas field. ISIS then brutalised Palmyra, publicly beheading dozens of civilians and systematically destroying some of the city’s UNESCO world heritage antiquities, including the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel.

The rebels also advanced in the south. The ‘Southern Front’ had formed in February 2014 and presented itself as more moderate than the radical groups dominating the north, committing to a pluralist post-Assad Syria and consciously avoiding Islamist rhetoric.¹⁰ Many of its fifty-four factions were still FSA, supported by the US, Saudi Arabia and Jordan via the Military Operations Center (MOC) – the Amman command room established with support from the CIA, discussed in Chapter 6. The coalition made modest gains against the regime in 2014. These helped to limit the appeal of Nusra, the largest radical group in the south, whom the Front considered its main future rival for dominance, despite several instances of collaboration.¹¹ On 25 March 2015 the Southern Front captured the ancient city of Bosra al-Sham, and then on 1 April, with the likely approval of the Jordanian government, the regime’s last southern border post at Nassib. Thereafter, partly inspired by the advances in Idlib, but also conscious that a newly formed Jaysh al-Fateh branch in Deraa by Nusra, Ahrar and other Islamists might challenge its regional leadership, the Southern Front launched ‘Southern Storm’ in June.¹² Supported in the rear by Nusra and Ahrar, and partly commanded by Jaysh al-Islam’s Alloush, the offensive sought to capture Deraa city. However, regime forces repelled the attack and a second, ‘Operation Righteous Storm’, also failed in July, halting the momentum and denting western, Jordanian and Saudi Arabian faith in the Southern Front.¹³ The assault also unexpectedly boosted the regime when rebel forces including Nusra fighters approached the environs of the southern Druze-dominated city of Suwaida in June. Druze leaders, who had stayed relatively neutral in the civil war until this point, feared Nusra after the group murdered twenty Druze in Idlib, and therefore urged their co-religionists to join the local NDF. This helped push the rebels back and kept the majority of Syria’s Druze in Assad’s camp.¹⁴

By the summer of 2015 the rebels were resurgent but further advances were far from assured, as seen by the failures in the south. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were more united on their Syria strategy, with Riyadh seemingly endorsing Turkey’s preferred allies in the north. After the successes of Jaysh al-Fateh Ankara and Doha made a concerted push to rebrand Ahrar as a viable anti-Assad partner for the international community. The new head of the SOC, the Turkmen Khaled Khoja who was close to Turkey, met regularly with Ahrar’s leadership. A more doveish wing of Ahrar that favoured western outreach battled for influence within the group. Its chief of foreign relations, Labib al-Nahhas, called for western support in two newspaper editorials in July, prompting support from some in Washington.15 There was also an attempt to rhetorically distance itself from its Jaysh al-Fateh partner, Nusra, although many noted their mutually dependent relationship on the ground.¹⁶ Turkey once again mooted the possibility of a US–Turkish enforced ‘safe zone’ free of both ISIS and the regime in the north, supported by Ahrar and other more moderate forces, although the idea was rejected by the White House.¹⁷ Ankara also played a role by mediating a series of local ceasefire agreements with Iran in August that eventually saw rebel fighters evacuated from the besieged town of Zabadani, in exchange for civilians being evacuated from the final regime villages in Idlib, al-Fuah and Kafraya. Importantly, the regime played no role in these negotiations and it appeared ever more in decline and peripheral.

Russian intervention

Tipping the balance: a legitimate campaign?

Russia’s military intervention in September was a direct response to the rebel resurgence. On 6 May 2015, as his forces were being pushed back in Idlib province threatening the Latakia heartlands, Assad admitted for the first time that the regime’s military were experiencing, ‘setbacks’ and ‘ups and downs’ on the battlefield.¹⁸ More explicitly, in another speech on 26 July he conceded that the army faced a manpower shortage and had withdrawn from some regions to defend others considered more important.¹⁹ With hindsight this admission was both a plea for help from his allies and a way of preparing his domestic supporters for what he likely already knew was under way: an Iranian–Russian support plan. Earlier in the summer high-level contacts in Moscow and Tehran had exchanged concern over recent rebel gains. Reuters reported that a joint military intervention was agreed in a meeting between Lavrov and Khamenei in Tehran before Suleimani was dispatched to Moscow in July to discuss specifics.²⁰ Soon afterwards, on 26 August, Russia and Syria signed an agreement that granted the Russian air forces use of Khmeimim free of charge for an indefinite time period.²¹ In September, at least 28 planes were dispatched there, along with up to 2,000 personnel, while Russia’s Black Sea fleet was sent to the eastern Mediterranean.²²

Putin presented this as a legal and legitimate campaign against ISIS terrorism. Unlike the US-led coalition in the east, Syria’s government had formally requested Russian assistance, officials noted. After Putin successfully gained unanimous authorisation to deploy the Russian Air Force from the Federation Council, Russia’s second chamber, his Chief of Staff, Sergei Ivanov, reiterated that, ‘The military goal of this operation is exclusively to provide air support to the Syrian government forces in their fight against ISIS.’23 Days before, Putin had addressed the UN General Assembly, calling for an international coalition against the Islamic State. Soon afterwards he announced a Baghdad-based anti-ISIS joint information centre involving the Russian, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi governments, with some reporting that Moscow provocatively invited the US, UK and Turkish governments to take part, only for the invitation to be swiftly declined. Nevertheless, barely an hour before the first planes were launched on 30 September, a Russian general entered the US’ Baghdad embassy to pass on a warning to American bombers in Syria, stating, ‘We launch Syria air strikes in one hour. Stay out of the way.’²⁴

Yet despite the repeated emphasis on ISIS, the new campaign was primarily aimed at the non-ISIS rebels. This was seen in the accompanying ground assaults. On 7 October the regime began a campaign against rebel forces in northern Hama province, followed by attacks in Latakia, Idlib, Homs and Deraa. On 15 October up to 2,000 Iranian IRGC troops, Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia militia commanded by Suleimani combined with regime forces to advance in southern Aleppo province, fighting ISIS in the east and non-ISIS rebels in the west.²⁵ At first this newly reinforced pro-Assad coalition made only modest gains, being pushed back in Hama and making slow progress in Latakia, Idlib and Aleppo.²⁶ Indeed, freshly deployed Iranian troops faced particularly high casualties, with four high-ranking IRGC commanders killed in one week in October, including General Hossein Hamedani, at that point the most senior Iranian military officer to be killed in Syria.²⁷

Moscow made a show of its interventions being more than just military. Russian media were invited to film Russian soldiers distributing humanitarian aid to war-torn regime-held regions.²⁸ There were attempts to help broker local deals between the regime and village elders and clan leaders in some rebellious areas to bring them back within Assad’s control.²⁹ Putin also sought to engage with what he called Assad’s ‘rational’ opponents. This was an extension of an early policy of peeling off parts of the opposition. A Moscow-based peace conference had been attempted in late 2014 and early 2015 but got nowhere after the SOC boycotted it and former leader Moaz al-Khatib, who had shown some initial interest, also declined. This time the SOC remained unsurprisingly sceptical, but other opposition groups such as the NCB and the PYD-aligned CDS were more receptive.

Eventually Moscow’s military contribution began to tell, particularly the introduction of ‘signature’ Russian military tactics such as frontal aviation, cauldron battles, and multiple simultaneous and successive operations, which made the pro-Assad campaigns more effective than before.30 Moreover, the regime and its allies took advantage of the shifting diplomatic climate, making major gains in early 2016 in the run-up to and during a new round of Geneva peace talks, much to the opposition’s disgust. Aided by a simultaneous advance by YPG forces from the Kurdish canton of Afrin, the regime relieved a long-lasting siege on the villages of Nubl and Zahraa in northern Aleppo, cutting the rebels off from their vital land crossing with Turkey at Bab al-Salameh. Before then, on 24 January, the last rebel stronghold in Latakia province, Rabia, had fallen, as had Sheikh Maskin in the south on 30 December, allowing the regime to tighten its hold on Deraa. In a further sign of Russia’s impact, on Christmas Day airstrikes on Ghouta in Damascus had killed Zahran Alloush, Jaysh al-Islam’s commander and a close Saudi Arabian ally. By the time a tentative ‘cessation of hostilities’ was implemented on 27 February, pro-regime forces had made major territorial gains and, as an Institute for the Study of War report noted, the intervention had ‘ultimately reset the military balance in Syria’.³¹

Putin’s war

What prompted such a massive military commitment from Russia? There were smaller measures that Moscow might have chosen to prop up Assad, such as providing planes for Syrian pilots, but Putin instead opted for direct intervention. In earlier chapters it was noted that the Russian President viewed the Syria crisis through three interconnected lenses: geostrategic, domestic and regional economic. Throwing his air force decisively behind Assad benefited his agenda in all three arenas, outweighing the accompanying risks.

Geostrategically, Russia’s behaviour since 2011 showed its steadfast opposition to what it saw as a US victory in Syria. While this did not mean it was 100% wed to the continued rule of Bashar al-Assad, whom Putin disliked, any possibility that rebel successes might force regime collapse was out of the question. If sending the air force in conjunction with an Iranian-backed offensive was the only means to ensure this, then so be it. Yet Putin was more ambitious than simply wanting to prevent Assad’s defeat. While his policy in Syria since 2011 had initially been defensive, to ensure that Moscow itself would never be a target for western-backed overthrow, as the conflict progressed and the realities of the post-American Middle East became apparent, Russia’s President saw offensive advantage to be had. Carnegie’s Dmitri Trenin argues that, starting with his intervention in Ukraine in 2014, Putin began breaking out of the US-dominated post-Cold-War order. His aim was to have Russia recognised as a global superpower on an equal footing with the US, not subordinate as it had been in the 1990s and 2000s. In the Middle East, this meant seeking what Trenin calls ‘co-equality’ with the US: presenting itself as a legitimate and viable rival superpower ally to the region’s governments.32 This partly explains the grand anti-ISIS rhetoric at the UN and the construction of a multinational Iranian–Iraqi–Syrian coalition on the eve of the intervention.

Putin saw other geostrategic gains. In the short term, the build-up in Syria forced the US to drop the diplomatic isolation it had imposed on Putin since the Ukraine crisis. At the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2015 Obama and Putin held their first direct dialogue since the Ukraine dispute blew up, and soon afterwards the US was forced to consult closely with Moscow as it rapidly revived the Syria peace process. In the longer term, the military deployment gave valuable experience to Russia’s recently reorganised air force. Having underperformed in the 2008 Georgia war, including, surprisingly, losing four planes, the Kremlin ordered significant military reform and investment.³³ With the expectation that potential instability in Central Asia and other parts of Russia’s near abroad might prompt further military deployments in the future, combat experience was crucial.

Domestically, as discussed in Chapter 4, Putin was genuinely alarmed at the growing Jihadist threat of the Syrian civil war. Were the regime to fall, Russia believed ISIS the most likely to capture Damascus. From this perspective, targeting the non-ISIS rebels was therefore justified as they were the greatest threat to the regime, and the regime was the bastion against an ISIS takeover. Yet Moscow made little distinction between the ideology of ISIS and that of the various Islamists among the rebels anyway. To Putin all Islamism was synonymous with Jihadism and even if different rebel factions like Nusra, Ahrar and various Muslim Brotherhood groups were temporarily estranged from ISIS, their ideologies were so close that they would eventually converge. With 14% of its population Muslim, the Russian government feared that any successes for ISIS or Jihadists in Syria might embolden radicalisation and connected violence at home. Preventing any kind of Islamist victory and destroying ISIS’ self-declared Caliphate thus had a strong domestic rationale. Moreover, there was a large number of Russian speakers fighting among the rebels and ISIS – known as ‘Chechens’ but often from various parts of the north Caucasus. These Russian speakers were among the first foreigners to flock to Syria in 2012, forming among the most effective fighting groups, and Putin was determined to kill or pin down as many as possible to prevent what he feared would be a violent homecoming.34

Projecting Russian power abroad also boosted Putin’s domestic popularity, and nationalist policies had been well received in the past. The operations in Syria actually helped to distract from a simultaneous dialling down of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Putin’s support for separatists against the Kiev government had struggled.³⁵ Pro-Putin Russian Orthodox church leaders in Moscow sought to boost this domestic support by offering the campaign religious legitimacy when a spokesman described it as a ‘holy war’ that would protect Syria’s persecuted Christians, who were threatened by ISIS.³⁶ Some religious figures even blessed arms destined for Syria, while Assad himself would later emphasise this narrative, by claiming Putin was ‘the sole defender of Christian civilization one can rely on.’³⁷

Regional strategic and economic concerns were also at play. Russia had recently been hit by international sanctions over its intervention in Ukraine and a sharp decline in global oil prices, causing the economy to contract by 3.7% in 2015. To launch a major overseas operation in Syria that cost at least $4 million a day therefore seemed unwise. However, with a $50 billion annual defence budget, the Syria campaign was affordable, provided the loss of planes and equipment was kept down – helped by the rebels’ limited access to anti-aircraft weaponry.³⁸ Also, in the short term at least, a military campaign served as a useful domestic distraction to increased economic hardship at home. Moreover, Russian arms sales were a key pillar of the economy, worth $15.5 billion in 2015 and boosting sales might help partly offset lost jobs and income elsewhere. The very public use of Russian arms in Syria, including an audacious cruise missile strike from the Caspian Sea via Iranian and Iraqi airspace in October, acted as an advertisement to potential customers elsewhere.³⁹ Indeed, analysts later estimated that international customers impressed by the campaign would boost Russian arms sales by $6–7 billion.⁴⁰ Finally, the Syrian regime had been in considerable debt to Moscow since 2011; including an amount of at least $4 billion for unpaid arms contracts that would be lost were Assad defeated.⁴¹

Putin had previously been willing to accept short-term strains in diplomatic and economic ties with Assad’s regional enemies to defend the regime. Yet as the Syria operation began, he sought to reassure, not clash. Lavrov was dispatched to the Gulf, while Israeli Premier Netanyahu was hosted in Moscow to be reassured about Russia’s military build-up.⁴² The one tie that was seriously damaged was with Turkey. Erdoğan was outraged when the Syria campaign began without his having being notified, despite having been in Moscow alongside Putin to witness the opening of the city’s largest mosque just days before.43 The intervention rolled back many of Turkey’s rebel allies’ recent gains, killed any chance of Ankara’s proposed ‘safe zone’ and even targeted rebel and ISIS oil smuggling that was a favourable source of income.⁴⁴ Then, on 24 November, Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24, killing two servicemen, claiming it had violated Turkish airspace. Moscow, denying that the plane left Syrian territory, reacted furiously, placing economic sanctions on Turkey that one economist predicted would cost Ankara at least $10 billion.⁴⁵ Russia rattled Turkey further by increasing its ties to the PYD, allowing them to open a Moscow office in February 2016. Like the US it saw the YPG as a valuable anti-ISIS ally and hoped to woo Syria’s leading Kurdish group away from Washington, something some in the PYD were receptive to, having leftist origins and stronger historical ties to Moscow. Yet this cooperation, which included Russian military support for YPG attacks from Afrin on Turkey’s rebel allies, only enraged Erdoğan further and confirmed the collapse of what had been a strong personal relationship for almost a decade.

The other regional relationship impacted was with Iran. Some noted that by placing its military alongside Iran’s in Syria, Russia was effectively aligning itself with Tehran’s regional agenda.⁴⁶ Yet the picture was more nuanced. Firstly, as noted, Putin was keen to maintain his other regional ties: with Iran’s enemy Israel, with Riyadh’s ally Egypt, with whom Moscow was growing ever closer, and with Saudi Arabia itself. Secondly, the intervention was as much about managing Iran’s regional role as supporting it. In July 2015, after years of painstaking negotiation, a comprehensive deal was agreed with the P5+1 on Iran’s nuclear programme, in which Tehran committed to reduce and redesign its nuclear facilities under IAEA verification in exchange for a phased end to nuclear-related western economic sanctions. Tehran now expected economic reward, including western investment and a resultant swelling of its regional power. While Russia previously had leverage over Tehran, being the friendliest among the P5, this was now gone and so it sought a new means to influence its southern neighbour. This was mostly friendly, including Russia’s announcing it would sell S-300 air defences to Iran, but there were some concerns. In particular, Russian leaders were worried by the shape of Iranian influence in Syria, which seemingly undermined the state institutions like the military that Moscow had always worked with in favour of non-state actors like the NDF whom the IRGC alone had access to. In addition, the IRGC concentrated its efforts in the south, around Damascus airport, the Sayyeda Zeynab shrine and the mountain supply routes to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a long way from Russia’s core interest of the base in Tartous that Iran looked unlikely to prioritise should Assad collapse. Russia’s intervention, reinforcing the Syrian military, not militias, and in the north-west, was therefore also a means to win back some influence over Syria from Iran. This would ensure that Russia, not just a newly rehabilitated Iran, would be the key international interlocutor in any resolution to the conflict and in post-war Syria.

Despite the short-term benefits of Putin’s actions, there remained long-term risks to navigate. The greatest was over-extension and being dragged into a quagmire. Many commentators noted that Putin hoped to execute the Syria campaign like the second Chechnya war of 1999–2000 when overwhelming force led to a decisive Russian victory, despite a seeming disregard for high civilian casualties.47 Yet the spectre of Moscow’s long-lasting quagmire in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 also lurked uncomfortably. The first six months of the Syria campaign saw very few casualties, only five, but had these dramatically increased, the cost of the operation risen or had there been any suggestion that ground troops including conscripts might be deployed, Russian public support might have turned.⁴⁸ Likewise, by entering the war directly against ISIS and other militant Islamists, Moscow made itself a more desirable target for domestic and international terrorists. Seemingly in reaction to the intervention, ISIS claimed responsibility for a bomb that exploded on a Russian passenger jet leaving Egypt on 17 November 2015, killing all 224 on board, mainly Russian holidaymakers. While Putin responded defiantly, increasing the strikes in Syria, a sustained terror campaign targeting Russians at home or abroad might also have shifted public opinion. It was therefore imperative for Moscow to rapidly translate its military intervention into political leverage and bring about a favourable conclusion, or at least de-escalation, to the conflict before any such quagmire developed.⁴⁹

Another peace process

Vienna

Russia’s intervention coincided with a shift from the US and its western allies towards greater compromise on Syria, and it is possible that Putin recognised this when deciding on military action. After five years of ineffectiveness, three developments shifted western attitudes. First was the Iran nuclear deal. While Israel, Saudi Arabia and hawks in Washington and Europe warned that Iran would take advantage of the deal to step up its regional machinations, especially in Syria, the White House and other western governments argued that the deal had successfully prevented Iran’s nuclear proliferation peacefully. Western companies, meanwhile, circled Tehran to take advantage of the end of sanctions. Though a full detente was still far off, several western diplomats argued that Iran would now be more inclined to consolidate its regional position by helping to resolve the Syrian war. Foreign Minister Zarif, who had built a working relationship with John Kerry during the nuclear talks, had even submitted a new ‘peace plan’ to Assad in August, supporting this idea.

Second was the continued distraction and threat of ISIS. Europe and the US found themselves victims of ISIS terrorism, some by returning nationals who had joined the ‘Caliphate’ in Syria but also by citizens ‘self-radicalised’ by ISIS propaganda. The most violent to date occurred in Paris on 13 November 2015 when 130 people were killed by multiple coordinated attacks. Third was the sudden and unexpected migrant crisis in the summer of 2015, greatly exacerbated by a surge in Syrian refugees heading to Europe. Syrians applying for asylum in European countries leapt from a cumulative 222,156 in December 2014, to 807,337 by November 2015 – although the total number of refugees was believed to be much higher.50 Media coverage of desperate refugees killed while crossing the Mediterranean prompted a public outcry in some quarters, and a right-wing reaction in others. Pressure mounted on western leaders to find a resolution to the Syrian war, with some politicians and editorials urging a compromise with the ‘lesser evil’ of the Assad regime.⁵¹

With Putin then raising the stakes in September to a level that western leaders, particularly Obama, were unwilling to match, a climbdown was required. Two pillars of western Syrian policy since summer 2011 wobbled. Firstly, Iran was invited to attend peace talks. On 23 October Kerry met with Lavrov and the foreign ministers of Turkey and Saudi Arabia in Vienna to prepare new international peace talks on Syria. At Lavrov’s insistence, Iran was invited to talks on 30 October in Vienna, which even Saudi Arabia’s new Foreign Minister Adel Jubair reluctantly accepted, noting he wished to “test” if Iran could play a constructive role.⁵² With this breakthrough achieved, on 14 November another meeting was convened in Vienna in which the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) was formed of the Arab League, China, Egypt, EU, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, UK, UN and US. Though Syrians were notably absent from the talks, the ISSG represented a recognition for the first time in nearly five years of conflict that war in Syria required consensus from all the international actors involved for any resolution to occur. Secondly, after insisting for years that Assad’s departure was non-negotiable, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond declared in early October 2015 that he might remain as titular head of state for a period of time up to three months, as long as he doesn’t stand for re-election.53 In Vienna the US and Russia continued to disagree over Assad’s future, but unlike in Geneva in 2012, Lavrov and Kerry played down any disagreement in order to allow the process to begin. Indeed, in a sign of how much the perceived power balance in Syria had shifted towards Moscow, in December Kerry appeared to concede the point when stating, ‘The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change’ – though US officials later clarified this meant Assad would not have to depart on ‘Day One’ of a transition.⁵⁴

The Vienna meetings prepared the way for a renewed round of peace talks. On 30 October, those who would form the ISSG released a statement declaring, ‘Syria’s unity, independence, territorial integrity, and secular character are fundamental’, that its state institutions must remain intact, that efforts must be made to end the war and that a ‘Syrian led and Syrian owned’ political process should begin.⁵⁵ On 14 November, the ISSG issued a joint statement that expanded on this, pledging: to commit to a Syrian-led political transition based on the 2012 Geneva Communiqué; to support and work to implement a nationwide ceasefire as soon as the regime and opposition took initial steps toward a transition under UN auspices; and to convene formal negotiations between regime and opposition representatives with UN Special Representative Staffan de Mistura tasked with deciding who should represent the opposition.⁵⁶ Soon afterwards on 18 December the UN Security Council, including China and Russia, unanimously adopted Resolution 2254, which endorsed the ‘Vienna statements’ of 30 October and 14 November. It set an ambitious target for peace talks to begin within a month, and six months after that the formation of a transitional government. It called for a new constitution and democratic elections, administered by the UN and including diaspora and refugees, to be held by July 2017. As had been noted in both Vienna statements, ISIS and Nusra were to be excluded from any talks and transition.

This prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity, but many of the dividing issues between the external actors remained unresolved. The resolution did not specify whether Assad could be involved in the transition after six months, nor whether he could stand for election in 2017. This long-standing grievance was kicked into the long grass, with many recalling that it had derailed the 2012 Geneva talks. A body to represent the opposition at any talks had been formed in Riyadh a few days before, but questions about its authority over all the opposition remained, particularly after Russia contested its make-up. Moreover, as at previous peace conferences, it remained unclear whether Assad or his allies were actually serious about the talks.

Riyadh

The tight scheduling of the Vienna process created a sense of urgency to once again unite the opposition into a single viable body. Saudi Arabia, with considerable American encouragement, hosted a conference in Riyadh on 10–12 December 2015 with the goal of bringing together the various external political bodies alongside ‘moderate’ fighting groups. The result was the 34-member Higher Negotiations Committee (HNC). This was composed of: nine members from the SOC, including Khoja, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mahmoud Farouq Tayfour, the KNC’s Abdel Hakim Bashar and the defected former Prime Minister Riad Hijab; five from the rival NCB group, who were more pro-Russian, with the US hoping their inclusion would placate Moscow; nine independents, including Building the Syrian State’s Louay Hussein and former SOC leader Ahmed al-Jarba; and eleven representing fighting groups, including Mohammed Alloush of Jaysh al-Islam (Zahran Alloush’s cousin), Labib Nahhas of Ahrar and several FSA representatives.57 Ahrar’s inclusion proved ambiguous, as its leadership publicly denounced the secular-leaning declarations of the HNC yet its representative in Riyadh, Labib Nahhas, signed up anyway, possibly acting independently. Whether this represented genuine division within Ahrar or was a tactic to allow more manoeuvrability depending on how negotiations went, remained unclear.

While the HNC was an impressive coming together of the political and armed opposition, key actors remained notably absent. Nusra was unsurprisingly not invited, having been explicitly excluded from the Vienna Process, despite its close co-operation with Ahrar and others in the Jaysh al-Fateh. Haytham Manna, who had recently split with the NCB, refused to attend, aligning himself instead with the PYD, who also were not invited. The PYD’s exclusion owed much to Turkish insistence. Ankara increasingly found itself in a three-way conflict between itself, ISIS and the PKK/PYD.⁵⁸ ISIS began to launch attacks inside Turkey, generally targeting Turkish Kurds and others supportive of the PKK/PYD, such as a bomb in Suruc in July 2015 that killed thirty-two activists. Ankara couldn’t tolerate attacks on its citizens, even those that supported its Kurdish enemies, and so Turkey finally joined the US anti-ISIS coalition soon afterwards. Yet, as with Russia claiming it was bombing ISIS but primarily hitting rebel positions, Turkey favoured bombing PKK positions in Iraq in its supposedly anti-ISIS campaign, prompting further PKK retaliations within Turkey. There were also domestic factors at play. In June 2015 Erdoğan’s AKP had lost control of parliament after voters delivered a hung parliament in elections. In response, Erdoğan played up his nationalist credentials, emphasising the need for strong government in the face of the dual ISIS–PKK threat, a message grimly reinforced by Turkey’s worst ever civilian terrorist attack in October when 102 were killed by ISIS in Ankara. The tactic worked and in a second election in November enough nationalists and right-leaning Kurds were persuaded to return a full AKP majority government. Thereafter military operations and retaliatory PKK attacks in Turkish cities increased further. In such circumstances, Erdoğan was adamant that the PKK’s Syrian affiliate could be nowhere near Geneva.

Having been excluded from Riyadh, the PYD initiated its own opposition conference in the Rojava town of Derik (Al-Malikiyah in Arabic). In October 2015 the PYD created the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella group that included non-Kurdish Syrian Arab fighting forces. While the PYD and its militia the YPG were still the dominant force and unquestioningly in charge, this new grouping allowed them to legitimise moving into non-Kurdish territory by claiming to be speaking for all Syrians. It also provided legal and political cover for the US to support it without officially backing the PKK, still on Washington’s terrorism list.59 The Derik conference created a political counterpart to the SDF, a 42-member Kurdish and non-Kurdish body, eventually known as the Council of Democratic Syria (CDS).⁶⁰ Manna and many of his supporters were elected, as were members of the Cairo Group, a collection of former regime officials such as Jihad Makdissi and other oppositionists reluctant to endorse the western and Saudi-backed opposition. The Derik conference created yet another rival grouping just as the HNC had seemingly managed to pull the long-divided opposition together. The presence of only one Kurd on the HNC, the KNC’s Abdel Hakim Bashar, and Turkey’s steadfast refusal to allow the PYD to be included meant that, once again, the peace talks would begin in Geneva with key players excluded.

Geneva

The beginning of the Geneva III talks, as they were dubbed, echoed the run-up to their failed predecessor, Geneva II. The HNC set a list of conditions to be met before they would attend the talks, including the lifting of regime sieges on certain areas to allow humanitarian aid to reach starving inhabitants, and an end to Russian and regime airstrikes. As in early 2014, these were not met, but the HNC was sufficiently pressured by the US and Saudi Arabia to take part nonetheless. This pushed the start of talks back from early January as proposed at Vienna, as did objections by Russia over which opposition should be invited. It accused some of the HNC representatives of terrorism, notably Jaysh al-Islam’s Mohammad Alloush, who was named Chief Negotiator by the head of the HNC’s negotiating team, Riad Hijab. Moreover, it lobbied for both the PYD and members of the CDS to be included. While he resisted inclusion of the PYD, under Turkish pressure, De Mistura eventually invited some CDS members, including Manna, to attend as consultants and advisers, but not as part of the official opposition delegation.61 Despite Alloush remaining in place, this seemingly satisfied Russia and the regime sufficiently for talks to begin on 1 February 2016.

De Mistura began with more modest goals than Lakhdar Brahimi in 2014. There were to be no face-to-face meetings as there had been at Geneva II. Instead he proposed a flexible framework that included simultaneous meetings taking place on multiple aspects of the transition process and proximity talks whereby the delegations would address intermediaries rather than the other side at first.⁶² Even so, the first attempt failed rapidly, and was suspended by De Mistura after just two days, on 3 February. The HNC delegates blamed the regime for disrespecting the process, launching its massive assault in Aleppo province at the same time, and refused to return until conditions on the ground improved. The regime, in turn, claimed the HNC had been ordered by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to quit Geneva. De Mistura tried to put a positive spin on the situation, insisting, ‘It is not the end and it is not the failure of the talks.’⁶³

The talks were salvaged when the US and Russia eventually agreed to implement the second component of the Vienna statements: a nationwide ceasefire. On 11 February, Lavrov and Kerry met once more, this time in Munich, and agreed on a ‘cessation of hostilities’ that eventually came into effect on 27 February – conveniently after the regime–Russian offensive in Aleppo had achieved its immediate military goals. The agreement was not termed a ‘ceasefire’ as it only included certain regions. Areas occupied by ISIS and Nusra remained outside of the agreement, with continued attacks on those areas by either regime, rebel, Russian, Kurdish or US forces legitimised. The great uncertainty was the Nusra-held areas as the al-Qaeda affiliate was embedded alongside other rebel groups in many places, especially Idlib. The opposition feared Russia and the regime would use this loophole to keep attacking their positions by claiming they were targeting Nusra. Given the viciousness of the recent offensives, there was deep scepticism among rebel forces that this agreement was anything more than a ploy to consolidate recent regime gains and prepare for the next attack.

The cessation of hostilities was far from perfect. The US and Russia had agreed to monitor any infringements, yet when they did occur, some rebels complained that US personnel on the hotline it had established spoke poor Arabic, impeding their task.64 Even so, while there were reports of violations by both sides, John Kerry claimed that after two weeks there had been an 80–90% decrease in violence.⁶⁵ The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) later stated that the month immediately after the ceasefire saw the lowest civilian casualties since November 2011.⁶⁶ Western media showed Syrians in regime-held Damascus enjoying rare moments of peace and normality. In opposition-held areas, protesters returned to the street to denounce Assad as they first had in 2011 and civil society greatly benefitted from the breathing space. Importantly though, many in rebel-held areas took advantage of the ceasefire to protest against Nusra as well, to dispel the notion that most civilians in opposition areas supported radicals.⁶⁷ Meanwhile the UN reported that it had sent 536 trucks filled with aid to nearly 240,000 people, and relief supplies to 18 besieged areas, although the regime still restricted access to several rebel-held districts.⁶⁸

The 27 February cessation of hostilities was unique: the first time anything approaching a ceasefire had held for any significant period, despite its flaws. Like the Vienna process as a whole, it primarily came about because of the Russian intervention. As has been noted, previous attempts at ceasefires during the Arab League plan and the Annan plan failed partly because external actors placed little pressure on their Syrian allies to abide by them, and often actively encouraged their failure. The same was true of another plan by De Mistura, soon after he was appointed Brahimi’s successor in July 2014, to encourage local conflict freezes. Yet Putin’s intervention forced the opposition to seek compromise out of fear, while it gave Moscow real leverage to enforce compliance on the regime. Putin expended considerable international political capital to ensure the cessation was a success, personally telephoning regional leaders including Assad, King Salman, Rouhani and Netanyahu.⁶⁹

As a result of the unexpected, but limited, success of the cessation, both sides agreed to resume talks in Geneva on 14 March. In a surprise move, Putin then announced that the military goals of his operation had been achieved and he was withdrawing ‘the main part of our military group from the Syrian Arab Republic beginning tomorrow’.⁷⁰ This threw western and regional observers as much as his initial intervention had done. Was Putin trying to maximise his leverage with Assad, showing him that Russian military intervention was finite and he needed to take talks seriously? Alternatively, was this meant to persuade the opposition and the US that Moscow was serious about the peace process? Another reading was that it was a ruse: Russia was not drawing down in truth, simply making a show to pacify international criticism for its bombing of civilian targets and downplay any talk at home of a Syrian quagmire. Similarly, was this aimed at a domestic Russian audience, with Putin trying to assuage fears of mission creep and declare a foreign policy triumph in the run-up to parliamentary elections in September? Finally, some argued Putin was hedging his bets: he was keeping the bases in Tartous and Khmeimim that could easily be re-equipped at short notice, should either the peace process fail or Assad need urgent help once more.71 No one knew for certain the Russian President’s motives, but a combination of these reasons was most likely. Indeed, soon after announcing this ‘withdrawal’, Russian forces were engaged in another major assault, helping regime troops recapture Palmyra from ISIS in late March. By keeping his rivals guessing, Putin likely calculated he could get the most out of the west on one side, and Assad on the other, perhaps having not yet decided which was the best means forwards for himself and Russia, but keeping as many options open as possible.

In the medium term at least, Putin’s intervention served him well. Internationally, he had broken the deadlock with the US over Ukraine and boosted Russia’s global and regional position. Any potential Assad collapse appeared to have been prevented and a peace process along Russia’s preferred option, which included Iran and didn’t necessarily call for Assad’s immediate departure, had been initiated and endorsed by all sides. Putin had increased his leverage with the regime, enjoying comparable influence to Iran for the first time since the war began. Yet long-term uncertainties and threats remained. Despite declaring a drawdown of forces, Russia had publicly invested heavily politically and militarily in Syria. Were either the Vienna Process to fail or Assad to fall by a means not controlled by Moscow, any credibility gained from the intervention would be lost. Just as George W. Bush’s optimistic ‘Mission Accomplished’ declaration after the Iraq invasion in 2003 proved to be hollow as the US was sucked into a doomed occupation, so might Putin’s claim prove in Syria. For all the Russian President’s self-congratulations, the war in Syria had not yet ended decisively in his favour and the long-term pitfalls of mission creep, an enduring quagmire and domestic terrorist retaliations remained.

What about the impact of the intervention on the Syrian war? At the beginning of this book it was noted how in past civil wars involvement by a foreign state on one side can end a conflict by increasing the chances that its ally will win or force its enemy to negotiate. Moscow’s intervention was certainly the most substantial action by a foreign power on one side since 2011, and seemingly broke with the cycle of balanced interventions until then. The Vienna Process and resulting ceasefire suggested that, indeed, the rebels and their external backers, especially the US, had been forced to negotiate. The action shook the war and peace process out of stalemate. Assad’s regime was boosted and retook territory from both the rebels and ISIS. The US and Saudi Arabia were able to put together a more united opposition than had been seen before in the HNC, and accepted Iran’s presence at the negotiating table for the first time. Both Assad and the rebels were induced to negotiate for longer than had been possible before, and a cessation of hostilities of record length was similarly achieved.

However, Russia’s intervention should not be overstated. The Vienna Process was more favourable to Putin, but was far from a Russian diktat. Moscow proved unable to overrule Turkey’s insistence that the PYD be excluded from Geneva III, and could not prevent groups it deemed terrorists being included in the HNC. The future of Assad remained debated, even if western leaders now conceded he might last a while longer. Nor did Russian intervention lead to a decisive Assad military victory, and the regime’s deep structural weaknesses of chronic manpower shortage and the inability to hold hostile territory indefinitely remained unanswered. The intervention was thus not decisive but yet more balancing: this time tipping the scale more in Assad’s favour, but not enough to win him the war. Even were the Vienna Process or a variation of it to eventually succeed, it seemed unlikely that Assad would be able to regain control of all of Syria even with continued Russian help. The intervention did not make Moscow the new hegemon in Syria or the region, it simply increased its stake in the post-American Middle East. Several other players remained in Syria and they seemed unwilling to abandon their interests.