Russia sent a delegation of high-level diplomats to Damascus on Tuesday, the first official contact between Moscow and the insurgent government that overthrew Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in December.
According to Russia’s state-run Tass news service, the Damascus delegation included Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Alexander Lavrentyev, Special Representative for Syria.
Lavrentyev, who was appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2015, made previous visits to Damascus when Assad was in power to manage military and economic cooperation between Russia and Syria.
As for Assad, he is reportedly living in exile in Moscow – an ignoble end for a dictator Russia spent lavishly to support during the long and brutal Syrian civil war. Assad was nearly overthrown in 2015, but his regime was saved by military intervention from Russia and Iran.
Assad was finally forced out of Damascus by a lightning-fast insurgent offensive in December 2024, led by a former al-Qaeda offshoot called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
HTS was Russia’s military enemy during the Syrian civil war and the Russian government still has it designated as a terrorist organization, but its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) was quick to extend an olive branch after ousting Assad. He described Russia as an “important country” in a December interview with Saudi Arabian state media and said he was resisting calls from elements of his jihadi coalition that wanted to completely exile Russia from Syria.
“We don’t want Russia to exit Syria in a way that undermines its relationship with our country,” Sharaa said.
Two of Russia’s biggest immediate concerns in Syria are its airfield at Khmeimim and its naval base at Tartus, which is Russia’s only refueling port on the Mediterranean Sea. Those bases were among Russia’s biggest prizes for saving Assad in 2015, and losing them would cripple Moscow’s ambitions to develop a strategic presence in the Middle East.
The Russians have been guardedly optimistic that Sharaa’s new regime will allow them to continue using the bases at Khmeimim and Tartus, albeit with certain “adjustments” to their arrangement, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it last month.
Russian news reports said Bogdanov and Lavrentyev will meet with Sharaa in person during their visit to Damascus, along with his foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani.
A Ukrainian delegation visited Damascus in December and urged Sharaa to kick the Russians out.
“We believe that from a strategic point of view, the removal of Russia’s presence in Syria will contribute to the stability of not only the Syrian state, but the entire Middle East and Africa,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said during his visit to Damascus.
The new Syrian government canceled a contract with Russian firm STG Stroytransgaz last week to manage a civilian port at Tartus. According to Syrian media, the contract was nullified because the Russian company failed to fulfill its terms. The contract was not directly related to the separate Russian naval facility at Tartus, but its termination was taken as an ominous portent.
Satellite photographs taken this week suggested the Russians have begun withdrawing their assets from the Tartus naval base, as two ships began loading cargo from the military port after days of waiting offshore. A large number of Russian military vehicles and other equipment also appear to have been loaded on the ships.
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