From September 2015 until December 2024, Russia conducted a military intervention in the Syrian civil war, following a request by Ba'athist Syria under Bashar al-Assad for support against the Syrian opposition and Islamic State (IS). The Russian Armed Forces' first conflict beyond the former Soviet Union since its dissolution; analysts pointed to strategic aims including limiting United States influence in the Middle East, access to the Eastern Mediterranean, and military capacity for other theaters of the Middle East, such as the Red Sea and Libya.
Pre-intervention, government forces controlled 26% of Syria. Russian involvement had included diplomatic support for Assad and billions of US dollars' worth of materiel for the Syrian Arab Armed Forces. The intervention began with airstrikes focused on Free Syrian Army militias. Russian ground support included special forces, advisors and private military companies like the Wagner Group. Russia declared the strikes a "war against terrorism", but used scorched earth methods against civilians. Putin defined Russia's goals as "stabilising the legitimate power in Syria and creating the conditions for political compromise", while a speculated aim was capturing territories from US-UK-Arab-backed militias. Syrian territory under Assad's control shrank from 26% to 17% by 2017.
By January 2017, the Russian Air Force was claimed to have carried out 19,160 air combat missions, delivering 71,000 strikes. In 2016, over 80% of strikes targeted opposition militias fighting IS. The intervention saw concrete gains for the Assad government from late 2016 to 2020: the recapture of Aleppo from the Army of Conquest, and Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor from IS in 2017, the 2018 Southern offensive, and the North-Western offensive. In December 2017, Russia announced its troops would be deployed to Syria permanently.
The air campaign until 2018 was characterized by three ranges. Long Range Aviation and the Black Sea Fleet used Kh-101 and Kalibr missiles respectively. Mid-range strikes used Su-24 and Su-34 tactical bombers. Close air support included Su-25s and Mil Mi-24 helicopters. By April 2018, Russian airstrikes reportedly killed over 7,700 civilians, about a quarter of them children, apart from 4,749 opposition fighters and 4,893 IS fighters. International and human rights bodies accused Russia of committing war crimes, targeting civilians, hospitals, schools, carpet bombing, and double tap strikes on relief workers. Weapons used included unguided bombs, cluster bombs, incendiaries similar to white phosphorus and thermobaric weapons.
Countries with ties to Russia, as well as Israel, Jordan and Egypt, either voiced support or stayed neutral. The US, UK and France, as well as Turkey and most Gulf states, condemned the Russian intervention, Russian war crimes, and complicity with the Ba'athist Syria's war crimes. The US imposed economic sanctions against Russia.
In November 2024, amid the dramatically escalated Russo-Ukrainian war, a renewal of Russian airstrikes failed to halt sweeping Syrian opposition offensives against government forces. Russia began to withdraw forces, by then consisting of special forces, base security and an aviation unit, and the fall of the Assad regime followed in December.
From September 2015 until December 2024, Russia conducted a military intervention in the Syrian civil war, following a request by Ba'athist Syria under Bashar al-Assad for support against the Syrian opposition and Islamic State (IS). The Russian Armed Forces' first conflict beyond the former Soviet Union since its dissolution; analysts pointed to strategic aims including limiting United States influence in the Middle East, access to the Eastern Mediterranean, and military capacity for other theaters of the Middle East, such as the Red Sea and Libya.
Pre-intervention, government forces controlled 26% of Syria. Russian involvement had included diplomatic support for Assad and billions of US dollars' worth of materiel for the Syrian Arab Armed Forces. The intervention began with airstrikes focused on Free Syrian Army militias. Russian ground support included special forces, advisors and private military companies like the Wagner Group. Russia declared the strikes a "war against terrorism", but used scorched earth methods against civilians. Putin defined Russia's goals as "stabilising the legitimate power in Syria and creating the conditions for political compromise", while a speculated aim was capturing territories from US-UK-Arab-backed militias. Syrian territory under Assad's control shrank from 26% to 17% by 2017.
By January 2017, the Russian Air Force was claimed to have carried out 19,160 air combat missions, delivering 71,000 strikes. In 2016, over 80% of strikes targeted opposition militias fighting IS. The intervention saw concrete gains for the Assad government from late 2016 to 2020: the recapture of Aleppo from the Army of Conquest, and Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor from IS in 2017, the 2018 Southern offensive, and the North-Western offensive. In December 2017, Russia announced its troops would be deployed to Syria permanently.
The air campaign until 2018 was characterized by three ranges. Long Range Aviation and the Black Sea Fleet used Kh-101 and Kalibr missiles respectively. Mid-range strikes used Su-24 and Su-34 tactical bombers. Close air support included Su-25s and Mil Mi-24 helicopters. By April 2018, Russian airstrikes reportedly killed over 7,700 civilians, about a quarter of them children, apart from 4,749 opposition fighters and 4,893 IS fighters. International and human rights bodies accused Russia of committing war crimes, targeting civilians, hospitals, schools, carpet bombing, and double tap strikes on relief workers. Weapons used included unguided bombs, cluster bombs, incendiaries similar to white phosphorus and thermobaric weapons.
Countries with ties to Russia, as well as Israel, Jordan and Egypt, either voiced support or stayed neutral. The US, UK and France, as well as Turkey and most Gulf states, condemned the Russian intervention, Russian war crimes, and complicity with the Ba'athist Syria's war crimes. The US imposed economic sanctions against Russia.
In November 2024, amid the dramatically escalated Russo-Ukrainian war, a renewal of Russian airstrikes failed to halt sweeping Syrian opposition offensives against government forces. Russia began to withdraw forces, by then consisting of special forces, base security and an aviation unit, and the fall of the Assad regime followed in December.
Following his successful annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and the temporary freezing of the war in Donbas, Vladimir Putin turned his attention to Syria in 2015. Russian intelligence reports estimated that Assad government forces effectively controlled a meagre 10% of Syrian territory. Ba'athist forces were steadily losing cities and towns to rebel forces, and the survival of the Assad regime appeared increasingly uncertain. Under the advice of Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov and Russian military elites, Putin launched a full-scale military intervention of Syria to prevent the fall of their ally, Bashar al-Assad, and Syria's subsequent entry into the Western sphere of influence. Other objectives included showcasing Russian military prowess by guarding its naval port in Tartus and project Russia's expanding influence across West Asia, North Africa, Europe and Eastern Mediterranean. To avoid a repeat of the disastrous Invasion of Afghanistan, Russia implemented an irregular warfare strategy, sub-contracting ground operations to Syrian Armed Forces, allied foreign militias and Russian PMCs like Wagner. However, Russia would retain control over air operations.
The Assad regime had lost vast swathes of territories by 2015, including the governates of Idlib, Aleppo, Raqqa, Deir Az Zor, Al-Hasakah, Deraa and Quneitra. Assad's forces had also been pushed out of the Hama, Damascus and Homs provinces by the Syrian opposition. According to Russian and Syrian officials, in July 2015, Assad made a formal request to Russia for air strikes combating international terrorism, while laying out Syria's military problems. According to media reports with reference to anonymous sources, after a series of major setbacks suffered by the Syrian government forces in the first half of 2015, Russia and Syria agreed to intensify Russian involvement. Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Quds Force visited Moscow in July to work out the details of the joint campaign (Soleimani's visit was denied by Russian officials).
In August 2015, Russia began to send Russian-operated warplanes, T-90 tanks and artillery, as well as combat troops to an airbase near the port city of Latakia in Syria. On 26 August 2015, a treaty was signed between the two countries which permitted Russia to use Syria's Hmeimim airport free of charge, indefinitely. Ratified by Russia's parliament in October 2016, it also grants Russian personnel and their family members jurisdictional immunity and other privileges as envisaged by Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. In September 2015, warships of Russia's Black Sea Fleet reached the eastern Mediterranean.
At the end of September, a joint information centre in Baghdad was set up by Iran, Iraq, Russia and Syria to coordinate their operations against ISIL (in the newsmedia the centre is also referred to as "Joint Operations Room in Baghdad known as the 4 + 1" implying the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah, in addition to the 4 states). According to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov's statement made in mid-October 2015, prior to the start of its operations in Syria, Russia invited the United States to join the Baghdad-based information centre but received what he called an "unconstructive" response. According to Alexander Yakovenko, Ambassador of Russia to the United Kingdom, the Russian government received a similar rebuttal from the UK government. In late December 2015, Turkey's president Recep Erdogan said that he had declined Putin's offer to join this alliance as he "cannot sit alongside a president [Assad] whose legitimacy is distrustful[sic]."
On 30 September 2015, the upper house of the Russian Federal Assembly, the Federation Council, unanimously granted Putin's request to deploy the Russian Air Force in Syria. On the same day, the Russian representative to the joint information centre arrived at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and requested that United States forces in the targeted area in Syria leave immediately. An hour later, Russian aircraft based in government-held territory launched airstrikes against opposition strongholds in Homs and Hama governorates. On the same day, Russian Orthodox Church officially praised the Federal Assembly's decision, depicting Putin's military intervention as a "holy war against terrorism".
Before and after the operation in Syria, Russian analysts said that Russia's military build-up in Syria was aimed inter alia at ending the de facto political and diplomatic isolation that the West had imposed on Putin after his 2014 invasion of Ukraine. At the onset of Russian military intervention in September 2015, the Assad regime merely controlled about a quarter of Syrian territories and was widely perceived to be heading towards an imminent collapse.
Prevention of Qatar–Turkey pipeline
One of the drivers behind Russia's military involvement in defence of Assad's clan in Syria was preventing any gas supplies to Europe and Turkey that would compete with Russian supplies. In an October 2016 TV interview, General Leonid Ivashov said that Russia's engagement in the conflict would allow it to block proposed pipelines between the Middle East and Europe, and thus ensure the dominance of Gazprom. In 2024 after fall of Assad Russian journalist Irina Alksnis, writing for RIA, justified Russia's intervention nearly in the same words, listing "ruining Western plans of anti-Russian games in the energy sector" among the benefits.
Countering Revolutions
Another factor that motivated Putin to launch the intervention was his fear of massive protests within Russia. Putin accused the West of backing "color revolutions" to destabilize the region, and believed these revolutions could be replicated via a massive anti-government uprising in Russia, leading to his downfall. The downfall of the pro-Russian Gaddafi regime during the 2011 Libyan Revolution had deeply upset Putin. His apprehensions were further confirmed by the 2011-2013 Russian protests. In 2014, the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity ousted the pro-Russian regime of Viktor Yanukovich. Putin reacted by starting the Russo-Ukrainian War and annexing Crimea, a move which triggered massive international sanctions. In the face of deteriorating relations with the West and suspicious of another successful revolution in Syria, Putin intervened to prevent the collapse of the Assad regime.
While Russian officials falsely claimed that the strikes were solely directed against IS bases, the location of bombings were in Homs and Hama provinces controlled by opposition militias fighting IS. Syrian civil society activists asserted that none of the strikes were against IS, but solely the rebel-held civilian areas, killing 36 civilians, including many children. US Secretary of StateJohn Kerry denounced the targeting of opposition areas during a session with the UN Security Council. Defence SecretaryAsh Carter denounced Russian attacks on opposition-held territories as "doomed to fail."
Russia launched its military intervention with extensive air strikes across Syria, targeting the strongholds of Syrian opposition factions, such as the Free Syrian Army. Violations Documentation Centre (VCD) reported that more than 43 civilians, including nine children and seven women, were killed in Russian airstrikes in the central Homs region on September 30, the first day of Russian aerial bombings. VCD also documented the usage of two vacuum bombs and stated that the Russian warplanes mostly bombed civilian areas in villages and towns, including residential buildings and food distribution centres.
According to Hezbollah media outlet Al Mayadeen, the Saudi/Turkish-backed Army of Conquest around Jisr ash-Shugour was bombed on 1 October by Russian planes; at least 30 airstrikes were carried out. Al-Mayadeen outlet also claimed that on same day, another series of Russian airstrikes targeted the Tabqa airbase, which was under the control of the Islamic State organization in the Raqqa region.
On 3 October, reports indicated that Hezbollah and Iranian fighters were preparing major ground offensives to be coordinated with Russian airstrikes. According to CNN, the Russian defence ministry said its soldiers bombed nine ISIL positions near the group's de facto capital in Raqqa. At least 11 were killed in a double strike by Russia in Syria's Idlib province, according to opposition groups.
On the morning of 7 October 2015, according to Russian officials, four warships from the Russian Navy's Caspian Flotilla launched 26 3M-14T cruise missiles from Kalibr-NK systems that hit 11 targets within Syrian territory. The missiles passed through Iranian and Iraqi airspace in order to reach their targets at a distance of well over about 1,500 kilometres (930 miles). The same day, Syrian ground forces were reported to carry out an offensive under Russian air cover. According to CNN citing unnamed United States military and intelligence officials, 4 of 26 cruise missiles on 8 October crashed in Iran, well before reaching their targets in Syria. Russia said all of its missiles hit their targets. Iran also denied any missiles had crashed on its territory. The Iranian defence ministry dismissed the CNN reports as Western "psychological warfare".