
Russian President Vladimir Putin with Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 24, 2024. Sputnik/Valeriy Sharifulin/Pool via REUTERS / Photo: Reuters
When Syria's transitional government terminated an agreement with a Russian company to manage the Tartus port on the Mediterranean Sea, it marked yet another defining moment in the falling clout of the Kremlin in the region.
This decision came barely weeks after the fall of the authoritarian regime of Bashar al Assad, who survived a mass uprising with ironclad Russian support for over a decade.
Recent satellite images also show that large amounts of military equipment – dozens of vehicles and tons of equipment – have been brought to the port from other parts of Syria, a process which began in mid-December.
Sparta and Sparta II – two ships belonging to Oboronlogistika, a company linked to the Russian defence ministry - have docked at the Tartus naval base, media reports said, potentially signalling the beginning of the evacuation of contingent personnel from Syria.
Incidentally, in the first contact with the new Syrian leadership, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov led a delegation to Damascus this week as Moscow seeks to recalibrate its policy to maintain a foothold in the region.
Why was Tartus so important for Russia?
The naval base in Tartus had long been presented as Russia's strategic asset in the Mediterranean.
Created in 1971 to service ships of the then-USSR's 5th Mediterranean Squadron, it was meant to demonstrate Soviet and later Russian, military presence in the region.
After the USSR's collapse in 1991 and the squadron's disbandment, the Tartus base became more of a symbol than a real military facility. Without proper funding and infrastructure updates, it gradually lost its strategic significance.
By the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, the base was a rather modest facility: three floating piers with only one operational, a repair vessel borrowed from the Black Sea Fleet, warehouses, and barracks housing about 50 personnel.
In 2017, at the peak of Russian influence in Syria, Moscow signed a 49-year lease agreement for the base. There were plans for massive upgrades worth $5oo million, allowing Russia to accommodate large ships, including aircraft carriers.
Yet, the significance of Tartus extended far beyond its modest technical capabilities. After Russia's military intervention in the Syrian conflict in 2015, the base was used for logistical support of operations not only in Syria but also in Africa: Libya, Sudan, the CAR, Mali, and Niger.
Above all, the Tartus base embodied Russia's geopolitical influence and strategic reach, being the last such facility outside the former Soviet territory.
It represented a kind of nostalgia for the time when the Soviet fleet competed as an equal with the American navy in the Mediterranean – a symbol of Russia's geopolitical ambitions and its aspiration to join the club of global naval powers.
Russia is trying to compensate for the loss in Syria by strengthening its presence in Libya, where it has taken control of the Al-Khadim and Al-Jufra bases through its new Africa Corps, the new name of the Moscow-funded Wagner militia group.
However, these facilities cannot replace a Mediterranean seaport. Without Tartus, even basic operations such as refuelling ships or conducting repairs will require either returning to Black Sea ports or using civilian infrastructure in other countries.
From Khrushchev to Putin
The history of Moscow-Damascus relations began before Syria gained independence. On July 22, 1944, the then-Soviet Union recognised the young state.
The close relationship between the two began in 1956 when Syria, inspired by Nasser's Egypt’s rapprochement with Moscow and faced with Western refusal to sell weapons for confronting Israel, concluded a major arms deal with the former Czechoslovakia, part of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc.
Moscow became Syria's main military supporter, supplying and modernising its armed forces, which had recently gained significant political influence within the country.
Over the following decades, the USSR supplied Syria with an impressive arsenal: over 5,000 tanks, over 1,200 combat aircraft, and about 70 warships – armaments worth approximately $26 billion.
Hafez al Assad's rise to power in 1970 opened a new chapter in relations between the two countries. Although Assad had viewed the Soviet Union "with suspicion" in his youth, he quickly recognised the benefits of cooperation with Moscow.
In 1971, he granted the Soviet fleet access to the ports of Latakia and Tartus, receiving even more weapons in return. By 1984, the number of Soviet and Eastern European advisers in Syria reached its peak – 13,000 people, more than in any other Arab country.
Syrian-Soviet relations gained particular significance after Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and shifted to the Western camp. Syria remained the last pro-Soviet regime in the Middle East.
To maintain influence in this key region, the Kremlin needed to keep Assad in its orbit of influence, though Moscow recognised its limited ability to achieve Damascus's main goal: the return of the Golan Heights.
The Moscow-Damascus relationship endured past the Soviet Union's collapse, though significantly diminished.
Bashar al Assad appeared more Western-leaning when he succeeded his father in 2000. Russia's notable non-representation at Hafez al Assad's funeral confirmed this drift.
A major strain was Syria's $13.4 billion Soviet-era arms debt, which was finally resolved in 2005 when Russia agreed to forgive about 75 percent of it.
The cooling of relations was also evident in the fact that during his first three and a half years in power, Bashar al Assad made about 45 trips to 25 countries. Moscow was at the bottom of the young ruler's priority list – he made his first visit to Russia only in January 2005.
Therefore, relations between Moscow and Damascus were never a simple alliance of like-minded partners but rather a marriage of convenience where each side pursued its own interests.
However, geopolitical realities and growing pressure from the US pushed Damascus back into Moscow's embrace, culminating in Russia's military intervention in the Syrian conflict in 2015.
Officially, Moscow justified its intervention as a fight against international terrorism. The growing influence of Daesh in 2013-2014 was presented as a threat to Russia's own security - extremists from post-Soviet states played a significant role in this group. The Kremlin expressed concerns that Syria without Assad could become a permanent haven for radicals from the neighbouring states.
However, other motives lay behind the official rhetoric. The Syrian crisis coincided with the Kremlin's growing disillusionment with Western relations.
As recently as 2008, Russia's foreign policy doctrine still spoke of aspiring to "transform Russian-American relations into a strategic partnership". But a series of events – from the Iraq War to NATO's eastward expansion – changed this position.
The Libyan intervention experience proved particularly painful for Moscow. The Kremlin believed the West had abused the UN mandate to protect civilians as a means to overthrow Gaddafi's regime.
Russia lost contracts and debt obligations worth up to $18 billion in Libya. When a similar scenario began unfolding in Syria, Moscow decided to act preemptively.
By 2015, when Russia began its military operation in Syria, initial principles had given way to pragmatic considerations. Issues of prestige and sunk costs emerged.
Syria became the central front in Russia's political confrontation with the West. Furthermore, Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency in 2012 led to a surge in confrontational state nationalism, which also transformed into support for Assad.
After Tartus
Russia's withdrawal from Tartus symbolises something greater than just the loss of a military base. It potentially marks the conclusion of the final chapter of the Soviet legacy in the Middle East.
Over the past half-century, pieces of the once-powerful system of Soviet influence in the region have disappeared one by one: Egypt turned to the West in the 1970s, South Yemen ceased to exist as a separate state in 1990, Iraq fell to the American invasion in 2003, Libya plunged into chaos after Gaddafi's overthrow in 2011.
The loss of Syria is the last straw on the camel’s back – the final nail in the erosion of Russian influence in the region.
The irony lies in the fact that the Assad regime, for which Russia fought so actively since 2015, fell not due to Western intervention that Moscow so feared but due to a combination of other factors.
Internal contradictions and resource depletion were exacerbated by Russia's inability to provide sufficient support while tied down by the conflict in Ukraine.
Additionally, the weakening of Iran and Hezbollah as a result of the new Middle Eastern conflict deprived Assad's regime of two key regional allies.
The loss of Syria seriously complicates Russia's ambitions in Africa, where Moscow had been trying to expand its influence in recent years.
Without the foothold in Tartus, maintaining military presence in countries like Libya, Sudan, CAR, and Mali becomes logistically more difficult and expensive.
Russia appears to be trying to adapt to the new reality by redirecting its forces to Libya, where it has taken control of former Wagner Group bases through its new Africa Corps.
But this represents a different model of presence - not direct power projection, as in Syria, but indirect influence through local allies and proxy forces.
However, history teaches us that nothing in the Middle East is permanent. Russia might find new footholds in the region.
But whatever new form Russian influence in the region might take, it will never be the same as before.