Beirut: Wednesday will mark a surge in Russian military operations in Syria, according to top Russian officials.
The escalation comes ahead of US plans to retake Al Raqqa, capital of Daesh on the Euphrates River, without consulting or briefing the Kremlin. This is a direct response to the unilateral Russian operation that liberated the ancient city of Palmyra last March.
Unhappy with the American march on Al Raqqa, Moscow is bracing itself for a major assault on Syrian militias allied to the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Moscow is planning to escalate its military efforts in Syria as of 25 May. Speaking on state television this week, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu called on the United States to join Moscow in its war on terror in the Syrian battlefield, saying that as of Wednesday, his air force will strike at all Syrian militias not observing the ceasefire.
This applies mainly to Al Nusra Front, the Al Qaida branch in Syria, and Daesh.
The statement is vague, however, and is up for wide interpretation by Russian generals, and it can include all Syrian groups that Moscow claims are not abiding by the ceasefire, especially the Saudi-backed Islamic Army in the suburbs of Damascus and the Turkish-backed Ahrar Al Sham in the Syrian North.
For six months now, Moscow and Tehran have been trying to blacklist both groups from the Syrian political process, with little luck. Russia’s UN envoy Vitaley Churkin even accused both groups of “receiving financial, material, technical, and military support” from Al Qaida and Daesh.
The US has refused to blacklist both groups, claiming that they are part of the “moderate opposition” that has agreed to attend UN-mandate peace talks. A spokesman for the State Department refused to sanction either group, saying: “We don’t want to see that happen. We don’t believe that’s constructive.”
Unable to eliminate them politically because of the US veto, Moscow has seemingly decided to rid itself of both groups militarily, starting from Wednesday.
The Islamic Army is already bogged down into a vicious battle in Al Ghouta, the agricultural belt surrounding Damascus, fighting Islamist rebel groups for control of the Syrian capital’s countryside. A concentrated Russian bombardment with sophisticated weapons and radars might just well push the Saudi-backed group into total collapse, which would be music to the ears of decision-makers in Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus.
The Russian decision is noteworthy, amid major developments in the Syrian battlefield. First, it was made by the Russian Defence Ministry and not Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who usually handles everything Syria-related. This signals Russia’s interest at shifting its Syria involvement from a diplomatic and political track to a confrontationist military one.
Second, Moscow’s escalation threatens to kill the already wobbly ceasefire, in place since late February, and liberates the Kremlin from any gentlemen’s agreement with the Americans to coordinate counter-terrorism strategy in Syria, especially after Shoigu’s remarks were received with a cold shoulder in Washington DC. On Friday, State Department spokesman John Kirby responded, saying: “There is no agreement to conduct joint air strikes with the Russians in Syria.”
Third, it scraps President Vladimir Putin’s mid-March decision to downsize his army’s presence in Syria. At the time, this was a Russian concession ahead of the Geneva III talks in Switzerland, aimed at pressuring the Syrian Government and forcing other stakeholders to de-escalate to enable a political breakthrough. Putin said it previously, making a point that his planes could return to Syria “in several hours” if there was a need to do so. From a Russian perspective, the time is now ripe for those jets to return to Syrian skies.
