Russia seems to be positioning itself for the day Bashar al-Assad may lose power, but nothing in recent statements shows President Vladimir Putin is shifting to join Western rivals in backing the rebels in Syria’s civil war.
As Syria’s new opposition coalition consolidates, Russia has stepped up efforts to tell the world it is not on President Assad’s side, despite its blocking Western and Arab efforts to provide UN support for the rebel forces trying to topple him.
Putin’s special Middle East envoy met quietly with members of the opposition coalition last week, and diplomacy on Syria was the focus of two trips Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has made to the region in November – neither of them to Damascus.
Lavrov said yesterday: “There can be no talk of Russia getting drawn into the armed conflict” in Syria – a pat message but also a reminder of the limits of Russian support for Assad, who has given Moscow its firmest foothold in the Middle East.
In Paris on Tuesday, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev repeated a statement Putin delivered as long ago as March – that Russia has no “special relationship” with Syria – and said Assad and his foes “bear equal responsibility for what is going on”.
Moscow has often suggested the rebels bear more blame for 20 months of violence, which has killed more than 40,000 people since Assad’s Government began a crackdown on protests in March 2011. It has accused Western nations of encouraging them.
A Russian diplomatic source suggested the meeting by the Kremlin envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, with opposition members last week brought no deviation from Moscow’s policy; Russia is telling all opposition groups there is no way to resolve the situation other than by dialogue with Assad’s Government, the source said. All meetings are in line with Russia’s long-standing principle of talking to both sides.
“It would take a really major development, a real game-changer in Syria, to make Russia change – something like the fall of Assad or a clear signal that that is looming,” another Western diplomatic source said.
The Kremlin is not convinced that is the case, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.
“Russia’s position stays the same; it is the situation that changes. Russia’s position at times looks like a losing one and then suddenly it seems like supporting Assad further is not a mistake, because Assad is not a doomed president,” Lukyanov said. “There are no grounds for Russia to change its approach now.” The reasons for that have as much to do with Putin’s global manoeuvring as with Assad’s prospects for political survival.
Russia has practical motives to hold onto the hope that Assad could stay in power. One of Moscow’s strongest footholds in the Middle East since the Soviet era, Syria has been a major client for Russian arms sales and hosts a naval maintenance and supply facility that is Russia’s only military base outside the former Soviet Union.
Perhaps more important to Putin is the image of a strong leader standing up to the West and opposing US-led intervention abroad.