Another in our series of translations of timely and relevant Carnegie Politika articles.
Patrols Again: How Serious is Syria’s New Rapprochement with Russia?
29 August 2025 Nikita Smagin
Summary: The Al-Sharaa government is interested in establishing control over the entire territory of Syria. And over time, the Russian presence will become an obstacle to this, just as Israeli interventions are now an obstacle.
Bloody clashes between the new Islamist authorities and the Druze in southern Syria in As-Suwayda, as well as Israeli strikes against Syrian government forces, have forced Damascus to reconsider its relations with Moscow. While in the spring the Syrian Islamists tried to squeeze Russia out of the country, now they are ready to discuss expanding the Russian presence to counterbalance the Israeli forces.
However, it is too early to say that Moscow may return to Syria in full. The current rapprochement is rather a forced and situational maneuver of the new authorities, who still do not trust Russia and are not ready to commit themselves to close cooperation with it in the long term. But the tactical maneuver may drag on if instability in the country increases.
The Turn After As-Suwayda
The large-scale clashes between Islamists and Druze in As-Suwayda that have erupted this summer once again demonstrated how precarious the position of the new Syrian authorities remains. This was already the second major incident of defiance by ethno-religious minorities after the Alawite uprising in Latakia this spring. Moreover, the current escalation also led to the intervention of Israel, which came to the defense of the Druze and launched attacks on government forces.
There are still many similar points of potential disobedience to Damascus in the country. These are the Kurds in the north of the country, tribal structures from US allies in the east, Russian military bases. and the remaining ISIS forces in the Syrian desert. In other words, Syria continues to be in a crisis of statehood, with Damascus controlling only part of the country’s territory. The Islamists have clearly failed to overcome the distrust of their authorities on the part of the main ethno-religious communities, which results in bloody incidents.
All this forces the new government led by Al-Sharaa to constantly recalibrate its foreign policy. Throughout the first half of 2025, we’ve seen Russia being slowly squeezed out of Syria. The new authorities have annulled old agreements concluded with the Kremlin under Bashar al-Assad: they excluded the Russian side from managing the port of Tartus and refused to print their currency in Russia.
Pressure on Russian military bases also increased. Damascus tightened inspections on approaches to facilities that began to be subjected to armed attacks.
However, in late July, a new turn in relations between the two countries was noted when a Syrian delegation arrived in Moscow, including Defense Minister Marhaf Abu Qasr and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Sheibani. The latter not only met with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov, but was also received by President Vladimir Putin. The Syrian Foreign Ministry immediately dubbed the visit “historic,” and soon after, evidence of real changes in Russian-Syrian relations began to emerge.
Thus, in early August, for the first time since the fall of the Assad regime, the Russian military resumed patrolling in the area of Qamishli in northeastern Syria. After this, there were reports that the Syrian government asked Moscow to have its military police resume patrolling in the southern provinces of the country. The goal of the initiative is to balance the Israeli presence in Syria and reduce the intensity of Israeli operations.
An economic thaw has also emerged. After meeting with al-Sheibani, Lavrov said that Moscow and Damascus would review old agreements. And at the end of August, Reuters reported that Syria had changed its mind about refusing to print money in Russia. According to the agency, the Russian joint-stock company Goznak, as in previous times, will issue new banknotes denominated in Syrian pounds.
A Counterweight to Israel
The main goal of Damascus’s new rapprochement with Russia is an attempt to find at least some kind of counterweight to Israel. Since the end of last year, the Jewish state’s forces have not only significantly expanded their zone of control around the Golan Heights, but also regularly strike government troops. In general, Israel has now surpassed all other powers in the scale of its intervention in the situation in Syria.
The Syrian army today has nothing with which to counter the Israeli intervention, and the new authorities’ attempts to reduce tensions by hinting at a possible normalization of relations have so far led to nothing.
It is worth adding that the decisiveness with which Israel is conducting military operations in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen only adds to the anxiety in the Syrian capital. The recent destruction of the political leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah and the military leadership of Iran cannot help but make Syrian Islamists think that, in the event of an escalation with Israel, anything is possible.
Under Assad, it was Russia that was the force that restrained Israel’s actions in Syria. The Russian military tried to avoid direct clashes with the Israelis and allowed them to destroy individual Iranian and pro-Iranian targets. But at the same time, they periodically intervened, shooting down Israeli missiles near Russian bases. And in general, the very presence of the Russian armed forces limited Israel’s freedom of action.
Apparently, the new Syrian authorities now want to use Moscow in the same role, resuming patrols of the Russian military police in the south of the country. Moreover, Israel itself may not be at all against such a development, viewing the presence of the Russian Federation as a way to keep Syria fragmented and reduce Turkey’s growing influence.
Temporary pragmatism
However, fear of Israeli intervention does not mean that the new Syrian leadership is ready to follow Assad’s path and restore Moscow’s former influence in the country. Rather, it is the current circumstances that put them in a situation where they simply cannot afford bad relations with Russia – their power is still too weak.
The long-term factors working against Russia’s presence in Syria have not gone away. Moscow, preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, still cannot afford to devote more attention and resources to other areas. And the Islamists who rule Syria are unlikely to have warmed to Moscow, given the years of civil war in which Russian planes bombed them as rebels.
In the long term, the Al-Sharaa government is interested in establishing control over the entire territory of Syria. And over time, the Russian presence will become an obstacle to this, just as Israeli interventions are now an obstacle.
Finally, given the scale of Western sanctions imposed on Russia, cooperation with Moscow could be very costly for Damascus, which recently managed to have sanctions imposed under Bashar al-Assad lifted. Of course, the bloody clashes between the new Syrian authorities and religious minorities have also drawn criticism in the West, but so far they are in no hurry to move from exhortations to action. But the same tolerance from the West towards cooperation with sanctioned Russian structures is not guaranteed.
The new frontier in Syrian foreign policy could be the normalization of relations with Israel, which is being actively promoted by the US Trump administration. It is difficult to understand yet whether the parties will be able to find grounds for compromise. But if Washington succeeds in reconciling Damascus with the Jewish state, the key reason for the current rapprochement between Syrian Islamists and Moscow will disappear, and Russian patrols in southern Syria will no longer be of relevance for al-Sharaa.
In other words, the current rapprochement between Syria and Russia looks like a pragmatic maneuver by the new authorities in conditions of uncertainty. As soon as Damascus feels more confident, the past bones of contention against Moscow will return to the agenda. The Kremlin’s help is needed by Syrian Islamists only during the period of instability and the formation of statehood, and then it may become too toxic to maintain. However, this period of uncertainty may well drag on, and along with it, the tactical rapprochement with Moscow will also drag on.
Translation © 2025 by Michael Estes and TranslatingHistory.org
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