Hours before Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to begin withdrawing from Syria on Monday, the Kremlin-backed Rossiya 1 television network was extolling the success of Russia's five-month-long bombing campaign in the war-torn country.
Russia had outperformed the US in the war in Syria on the military and the diplomatic front, according to Dmitri Kiselyev, the presenter of Rossiya 1's Sunday night weekly news wrap: "In diplomacy we are more honest, quicker and better at taking the initiative than the Americans."
The demonstration of Russian firepower in Syria and its “washed and clean-shaven” had forced the US to “regard us with respect”, he said. The “Americans fly away in horror at the sight of our Russia warplanes.”
Putin’s surprise decision to begin withdrawing from Syria has left policymakers in Washington puzzling over the Russian president’s military and diplomatic end game.
But in Russia, the state-dominated media is leaving no doubt that Putin's Syria campaign has been an unmitigated triumph allowing his country to project power outside its borders and expose the weakness and double standards of the US in the region. "I'm going to buy a television and follow with interest the serial about the Great Putin Victory in Syria," Arkady Dubnov, a central Asia expert wrote on social media yesterday.
Putin has in the past blamed the US for stoking the conflict in Syria by backing a rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad five years ago that has morphed into a highly complex struggle between rival Muslim Sunni, Shia and jihadist insurgent groups.
But the Russian president left anti-American rhetoric aside on Monday when, flanked by Sergei Shoigu, his defence minister, and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, he announced Russia's mission in Syria had been "largely accomplished" and it was time to begin withdrawing forces.
Conditions of peace
“The effective work of our military has created conditions for the start of the peace process,” Putin said. With air cover from Russian forces, the Syrian army had over the past five months recaptured more than 100,000sq km of territory including 400 population centres, according to Shoigu.
Terrorists had been driven out of Latakia province in western Syria, an Assad stronghold and the home of Russia’s Tartus naval base and an airfield at Khmeimin.
Communications had been restored with the strategic city of Aleppo after a long siege by rebel groups.
When launching the Syrian airstrikes last September, Putin flagged the intervention as a battle against Islamic State (Isis) which had been recruiting Russian citizens to fight in its ranks. Yet, throughout the campaign, Russian bombers have largely targeted more moderate Syrian opposition groups fighting government troops.
Shoigu made no mention of Isis on Monday as he described how “more than 2,000 bandits of Russian origin and 17 field commanders,” had been eliminated in Syria. “A real breakthrough has been achieved in the battle against terrorism,” he said.
Although the Syrian campaign has played well for the Kremlin, many Russian commentators consider the war against global terrorism to be unwinnable.
As Russian forces begin to withdraw, Putin’s focus has shifted from military objectives to extracting political and diplomatic capital as Syrian peace negotiations get under way in Geneva, said Dubnov. It is possible that the Kremlin has already reached an agreement with the US to share influence in Syria that would allow Russia to retain control of the Tartus naval base and the nearby Khmeimim military airfield, he added.
Russia’s withdrawal marks a major setback for Assad who, having made significant military gains on the ground in Syria, has pledged to fight on until the end.
Putin was putting pressure on Assad to co-operate in the Syrian peace process and accept the need for a political settlement to the conflict, said Fyodor Lyukanov, the chairman of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defence Policy.
Message to Damascus
At the very least the withdrawal of Russian forces was a “signal to
Damascus
that Russia is not intending to do all the work for it”, he told a Russian news site.
Putin may be calculating that by playing a constructive role in the Syrian peace talks Russia will win concessions from western powers in other areas closer to its borders.
An agreement on Ukraine that would acknowledge the country as Russia's sphere of interest would do far more to buoy Putin's popularity at home than the success of a military campaign in Syria.