Roksolana Bychai and Steve Gutterman
When he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently believed Russian forces would topple the government within weeks and restore Moscow’s dominance over the country after 30 years of independence.
Putin was mistaken, and the war he started rages on nearly three years later. It’s hard to imagine Putin didn’t mull over his miscalculation when militant-led opposition forces seized Damascus and swept Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power less than two weeks after launching an offensive.
The Kremlin’s focus on the war against Ukraine is one of the factors that fed into the speed and success of the Syrian rebel offensive. Russian warplanes stepped up attacks on rebel-held territory as the offensive took hold, but with its military capabilities in Syria limited and its eyes on Ukraine, Moscow made no massive effort to stop it.
Now that Assad has fallen, what effect will Russia’s big Middle East setback have on its war against Ukraine?
On the battlefield, not a huge one, analysts say, though it will depend in part on the fate of Russia’s forces and bases in Syria: the airfield at Hmeimim and the naval facility at Tartus.
No comments:
Post a Comment