Hamidreza Azizi and Nicole Grajewski
Last week, Syrian rebels led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a surprise offensive, capturing significant parts of Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities, and advancing south into Hama province. This offensive—the most substantial territorial gain by rebel forces in nearly a decade—struck at the heart of what Russia once considered its defining achievement in Syria: the 2016 recapture of Aleppo.
In December 2016, Russian airpower, in coordination with Iranian-backed forces and the Syrian army, retook the city in an operation that demonstrated Moscow’s military effectiveness and cemented its role as the decisive external actor in Syria, overshadowing other actors such as the United States, which focused narrowly on countering the Islamic State, and Turkey, which was preoccupied with containing Kurdish forces near its border with Syria. The loss of Aleppo thus represents not just a military setback but a symbolic challenge to Russia’s claim of being able to decisively shape Syria’s future.
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