Putin orders start of Russian forces' withdrawal from Syria | News , Middle East | THE ... - 0 views
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he would start pulling his armed forces out of Syria, five months after he ordered a military intervention that turned the tide of the war in favor of Syrian President Bashar Assad."I believe that the task put before the defense ministry and Russian armed forces has, on the whole, been fulfilled," Putin said at a Kremlin meeting with his defense and foreign ministers at which he announced the withdrawal, starting Tuesday.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had telephoned Assad to inform him of the Russian decision, but Peskov said the two leaders had not discussed Assad's future - the biggest obstacle to reaching a peace agreement.
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But the Russian leader signaled Moscow would keep a military presence: he did not give a deadline for the completion of the withdrawal and said Russian forces would stay on at the port of Tartous and at the Hmeimim military airport in Syria's Latakia province, from which Russia has launched most of its air strikes.
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Questions remained about the practical implications of Putin's announcement. It was not clear if Russian air strikes would stop. Russia will retain the capability to launch them, from the Latakia base.
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By signalling the start of a withdrawal, Russia is likely to soothe relations with the United States, which has accused the Kremlin of inflaming the Syrian conflict and pursuing its own narrow interests."I think we did it to show the Americans that we do not have military ambitions and don't need unnecessary wars," said Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trend Studies in Moscow. "They have been accusing us of all kinds of things and this is a good way of showing them they are wrong."
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Russia has said it was in Syria to fight extremist groups, but a large number of its air strikes were against anti-Assad groups that Washington and its allies designate as moderate opposition groups.Opposition fighters have alleged that Russia had combat troops on the ground fighting anti-Assad forces. The Kremlin has never acknowledged this, so it was unclear whether such forces would be covered by the withdrawal.Putin said Russia's Tartous naval base and Hmeimim air base "will function as they did previously. They must be reliably protected from land, sea and air."That continued military presence, and Russia's role as a major diplomatic and financial backer of Assad, ensures that the Kremlin will maintain powerful leverage over Syria and the progress of peace talks.Russia is likely to resist demands by the anti-Assad opposition and their Western supporters for the Syrian leader to leave office under the terms of any peace agreement.