Russia Struggles to Salvage its Mediterranean Investment

 

Russia is facing increasing difficulties in recovering its position in the Mediterranean and the Levant, following the overthrow by President Bashar Al Assad in Syria by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

As was predictable, Russian claims to be negotiating a continuance of its basing in Syria with its new leaders proved to be bluster. Given the Russians’ long history of terror bombing of civilian targets during the civil war, its provision of asylum to the fleeing Assad family, and having accused the HTS leader Ahmed Al Sharaa of being a CIA spy, the Syrians saw no benefit in prolonging the Russian presence. HTS has now made it clear that it sees no continuing role in Syria for either Russia or Iran.

In the meantime, the Russians have pulled back from their positions in Syria’s interior, concentrating the forces remaining at their airbase at Khmeimim and at Tartus on Syria’s coast, off which the remnants of Russia’s Mediterranean flotilla still lingers. It has been somewhat surprising that the Russians have been able to execute this withdrawal unscathed and without interference, which must be considered a credit to the discipline applied to Syria’s various armed factions by the new HTS leadership.

The Russians are likely to have explored any possibility of keeping a presence in the Mediterranean area, in particular to service their interests in North Africa. The most likely option is in eastern Libya, in the area controlled by the renegade Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar. Nonetheless, at a time when its war maintenance reserves are severely depleted by the ongoing war in Ukraine, Russia’s military hardware marooned in Syria is a valuable and urgently needed resource that could have a major impact on the Ukrainian battlefield, a development which Ukraine would seriously wish to sabotage. To make the shift, helicopters, and high-value air defense units can be flown out, but armored vehicles, heavy equipment, and munition stockpiles need to be moved by sealift.

Hence the sighting in transit the Straits of Gibraltar on December 23 of two Ropucha Class landing ships (Alexander Otrakovsky (L031) and Alexander Shabalin (L110)) and the improved landing ship Ivan Gren (L135), in company with cargo vessels Sparta and Ursa Major often seen previously on the route to Tartus. Being shipped as deck cargo on the Ursa Major were two dockside cranes - not needed in well-equipped Tartus, but probably a necessity to build up one of the under-developed ports in Libya which the Russians may have contemplated adopting as their new Mediterranean base.

 The Libyan option may have sunk when later on December 23, the Ursa Major foundered off Oran as a consequence apparently of an engine room explosion. If the evacuation convoy now needs to take the long route back to the Baltic instead, the Ukrainians are likely to be keenly and actively interested in preventing its safe arrival in Russia.

The Russian withdrawal from Syria also has implications for regional politics within the immediate neighborhood. Turkey is evidently keen to fill the vacuum left by the Russians, inspired by memories of Ottoman rule in the Levant and dreaming already of a revival of the Hejaz Railway destroyed by the Arab Revolt. However, autonomy of the Kurdish northeast of Syria is likely to prove an enduring obstacle to Turkish ambitions.

Elsewhere in the region, a realignment is in progress; for transactional purposes some countries have hitherto sought to treat the West and Russia as equals, and in their own best interests may now be seeking to distance themselves from those they had previously lauded as the best of friends.