Russia’s role in the Levant and its involvement in the region’s power politics have undergone a significant shift over the past decade, mainly because of opportunities created by geopolitical and regional developments, including, most critically, the pivoting of U.S. foreign policy away from the Middle East and forever wars. These developments opened the door in 2015 to a more active Russian role in reshaping a region that was in the throes of societal upheavals and expanding conflicts. The United States’ growing disengagement became especially evident following the failure of U.S. former president Barack Obama’s famous red line in preventing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from launching chemical weapons attacks against Syrian citizens in 2013. This created an opportune moment for Russia to launch a new strategic and somewhat pragmatic foreign policy in the Levant, through which it sought to carve out a space for itself in a changing order. Since then, Moscow has acted as a broker of sorts between different actors involved in the Syrian conflict, while balancing out its relationship with each actor in favor of its own national interests. In the process, it has sought to redefine a regional security architecture more amenable to these interests.
Syria provided the opening for Moscow to demonstrate its revamped foreign policy. In 2013, President Vladimir Putin’s regime launched a major diplomatic initiative to disarm the Assad regime’s chemical arsenal, two years before its first direct military intervention in Syria in 2015 and two years after the death of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi sent shockwaves in the Kremlin. Moscow’s military engagement in particular marked a more visibly interventionist approach to the region that was in line with a more globally assertive and expansionist Russian foreign policy, as was evident in its occupation of Georgian and Ukrainian territories in 2008 and 2014, respectively.
Despite limitations in Russia’s ability to address the region’s most pressing issues, including the recurrent Israel-Palestine conflict in Gaza, Moscow’s military intervention guaranteed a seat at the table in shaping future political settlements and security frameworks in Syria and possibly Lebanon. This was most apparent during the Astana process, created by Russia to address the Syria crisis—a process that undermined the UN-led Syria peace process where the United States and the EU were perceived by Moscow to have an outsized influence.
The military intervention in Syria also allowed the Kremlin to project its power and influence across the region, although this effect waned over time given the limitations in Moscow’s political sway and economic capacities. Consequently, Moscow adopted a much more opportunistic and pragmatic foreign policy in the Levant. This meant that Moscow maintained a relationship with all the regional players involved in Syria, favoring a transactional approach with each one in a compartmentalized manner. It strove to capitalize on its role in balancing out Iran’s presence in Syria, while leveraging its interests with the Gulf region and Israel.
However, this initial pragmatic and nonideological approach yielded mixed results, given its far more limited margin of maneuver as compared to that of the United States and its network of global partners. To some extent, Russia’s policy was defined by its political and economic inability to fully dictate a pathway to its desired outcomes. While Moscow succeeded militarily in helping the Assad regime restore control over large swaths of Syrian territory lost to rebel forces in the first few years of the conflict, it was unable to restore peace or support the reconstitution of the Syrian state. Moscow also failed to convince Arab and Western countries to buy into its Syria initiatives, including its reconstruction plans. Ultimately, if Moscow is interested in the long-term recovery of the Syrian state, containing Iran’s presence will be key, specifically for Arab players who can fund the country’s reconstruction. Russia’s current policy of acting in an equidistant manner to Iran and its foes is reliant on the current status quo in Syria.
Following the onset of the war in Ukraine, Russia reframed its strategic approach to the region in response to perceived transformations in the global order. Due to isolation from the West, Moscow responded by deepening its relationship with chief regional actors such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf countries—but to various degrees of success.
A Diplomatic and Military Broker
During the height of the Syria crisis, Russia’s pragmatic and flexible foreign policy in the region was unencumbered by either international blowback or domestic constraints. Tactically, Russia sought to position itself as a broker of sorts between the different warring factions—some of whom are off limits to Western powers, such as the regime’s allied militias—as well as between the regional and international actors that had become involved in the country’s conflict. At the same time, it sought to leverage its role in Syria to expand its economic footprint and to forge wider strategic relations with Gulf countries (and to a lesser extent China). It did not seek to replace the United States in the region, but rather to transform Syria into a launchpad for a wider regional presence and role.
To achieve those aims, Russia pursued a low-cost intervention in September 2015, with the goal of tipping the ongoing conflict in favor of the Syrian regime at minimal cost to the Russian treasury or to Russian lives. At great cost to Syrian lives, Moscow provided airpower and military support to the Syrian regime, allowing the government to retake territories lost to various opposition groups in preceding years. However, the Kremlin refrained from placing a significant number of Russian boots on the ground (beyond the deployment of Wagner Group mercenaries and some Russian military police).
Although initially framed as a counterterrorism campaign against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Russia’s intervention in Syria gave Moscow valuable leverage in reshaping parts of the region’s security architecture. In particular, the establishment of the Astana framework in January 2017 undermined the UN-led process that sought an end to the Syrian conflict. This framework reflected Russian-Turkish agreements and influence in northwestern Syria and Iran’s key role in supporting the Syrian regime, and it included a minor role for some Syrian nonstate actors. It also demonstrated Russia’s desire to manage Iranian ambitions in Syria by building its own networks within the regime, pursuing an Arab role to balance Tehran’s, and coordinating with Israel over its attacks. The Russian role in shaping Syria’s multiple security and political arrangements also helped it play off regional actors against each other. Examples include replacing Turkey with Egypt as a guarantor of the local deal in Homs, Syria.
As part of this framework, Russia helped establish four de-escalation zones: in Idlib and parts of the Latakia province, northern Homs, eastern Ghouta, and southern Syria (especially Deraa and Quneitra). With Russia, Iran, and Turkey acting as guarantors, different military actors agreed to a halt in fighting, as negotiations to end the conflict took place. In the process, Moscow negotiated so-called local reconciliation deals, meant to bring back Syrian rule over territories still controlled by rebel forces, particularly around Damascus and in southern Syria. These deals, brokered at the local level, would often follow a pattern of combined ground offensives, aerial bombardments, and sieges to bring about the capitulation of local rebels and return these territories to Assad’s control.
Its military activity in Syria also bolstered Russian arms sales in the region. While this role was limited compared to that of the United States, the Syrian conflict boosted Moscow’s military standing and presence in the Levant following a dormant two and a half decades. For the Russian state, the Syrian intervention demonstrated the efficacy of Russian weaponry with 210 new weapons tested in Syria in 2018, according to the Russian defense minister at the time. Subsequently, Russia’s weapons sales witnessed a surge. Moscow also attempted to widen its military cooperation with countries dependent on U.S. military aid, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan.
Limitations in Russia’s Role
Yet translating these military achievements into diplomatic and economic wins was another matter. Even though the Syrian regime managed to recapture territories it had lost to rebel forces, the local reconciliation deals often failed to instate peace, particularly in southern Syria. Meanwhile, the Astana process became more of a coordination mechanism between the competing agendas of Iran, Russia, and Turkey than a diplomatic initiative that could end the Syrian conflict and restore the Syrian state.
The clearest indication of the limits of Russia’s role and capacity was the failed reconstruction and refugee return initiative that it launched in 2018. The effort failed in part because Russia could not secure buy-in from other major actors, including regional powers and the EU. Through this initiative, Moscow linked the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe to a favorable solution in Syria that would keep Assad in power. As part of this plan, Russia would help secure the return of millions of refugees if the EU agreed to fund reconstruction and ease restrictions on the Assad regime. Putin openly called for an EU role in funding reconstruction in Syria in order to facilitate the return of millions of Syrian refugees from Europe and the Middle East. While this call was muted in Europe, during a state visit to Moscow, Lebanese president Michel Aoun sought Russia’s cooperation in the country’s effort to return hundreds of thousands of refugees to Syria. However, Russia’s ability to deliver on its promises proved limited.
Subsequently, despite Lebanon’s support for the refugee initiative, Moscow’s attempts to seek economic and political gain in the country did not materialize. Although Russian companies Rosneft and Novatek won contracts related to Lebanon’s prospective offshore gas fields, Western sanctions in the wake of the Ukraine war forced Novatek out of the consortium and its role was taken over by QatarEnergy in 2023. Russian plans for investment and a deposit in Lebanon’s failing Central Bank did not see the light either.
Moscow had hoped to influence Lebanese decisionmakers and carve out a space for itself in the country’s political and military spheres as well. The Kremlin flexed its muscles as early as November 2015, requesting the closure of Lebanese airspace, citing Russian military drills. Following this episode, Russia’s overtures to Lebanon included proposals for closer military and economic ties and an initiative to recruit Lebanese citizens to guard the Lebanese-Syrian borders. The military cooperation agreement, which failed to materialize following U.S. and European pressure, would have provided Moscow with access to Lebanese military bases. Russia’s Lebanon ambitions were short-lived, although its military presence in nearby Syria and the potential of Arab support for reconstruction might revive these prospects. Meanwhile, a 2021 Russian deal with Syria to explore offshore gas covers a disputed region with Lebanon’s maritime borders, granting Moscow a de facto role in demarcation negotiations between Syria and Lebanon, on par with the U.S. role in negotiating a maritime deal between Lebanon and Israel.
The limit of Russia’s outreach was also evident in its use of a long-standing instrument of Russian foreign policy: the Orthodox Church. The church has historically played an important role in leveraging Russia’s political position across the Levant. Imperial Russia had claimed the mission of preserving Orthodox Christianity in the Levant in the 1800s, mostly competing with similar imperial European roles against an ailing Ottoman empire. Russian patronage of Orthodox Christians was largely symbolic, and Putin drew on this heritage in framing his country’s intervention in Syria. Syria is home to the largest Orthodox community in Levant, followed by Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories, with a majority following the Antiochian Church.
Prior to 2015, Moscow utilized the Orthodox Church and its symbols to justify its military intervention in Syria to domestic and international audiences. It highlighted the plight of Syrian Christians amid the rise of violent Islamist groups in the country and indicated that about 50,000 Syrian Christians had applied for Russian citizenship. During the war, Russian Orthodox priests blessed fighter jets and other weapons, according to photos that reverberated across the country. Yet the religious symbolism deployed by Moscow and the assertions of the Russian Orthodox Church were contested by the Antiochian Church leadership. Russia’s Orthodox Church called its intervention in Syria a holy one, while the Antioch Patriarch John X and his clergy emphasized the need for peace to safeguard Eastern Christians whose presence may be threatened amid polarizing conflicts.
Similarly, Russia’s intervention in Orthodox affairs within Syria were fraught with tensions. On the one hand, the Orthodox Church leadership came out in support of the Assad regime, seeing it as a way to safeguard Syrian Christians in a conflict they had little sway over. The Russian Orthodox Church also provided financial and material support to the Syrian Orthodox Church, including food and medicine. On the other hand, the participation of Russian priests in local religious ceremonies generated unease among the Syrian Orthodox Church.
In Lebanon, divisions were also apparent among the Orthodox Christian leadership over the Russian intervention in Syria. Elias Audi, Beirut’s Greek Orthodox Bishop, was the most vocal critic of the war and the Russian Orthodox Church’s stance in Syria. In 2015, he rejected the church’s justifications and blessings of the war. “The Church does not bless wars and does not call them holy. This is why we’re Orthodox, especially here in Antioch,” he said. Similarly, John X echoed the position that “in Christianity, there is no holy war.” Following the decision by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in favor of the separation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the canonical jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church, these divisions became even more acute. Criticism of Russia’s policy even triggered calls for separating Lebanon’s Orthodox Church from that of Syria’s; and within the Orthodox leadership, political differences over Russia’s role in Syria persisted.
Religious symbolism and the Orthodox Church were just two policy instruments used by Russia in support of its war effort. Moscow also deployed Muslim troops, as part of its so-called population centric approach, to guarantee local reconciliation agreements between rebels and the Syrian regime, given the lack of confidence in the latter’s commitment to any deal. These Muslim troops proved effective in enforcing the agreements and were briefly deployed near the Lebanese-Syrian borders (to Iran and Hezbollah’s dismay).
A Balancing Act
Moscow’s limited capacity to impose its writ and self-imposed role of a broker in the Syrian conflict propelled Russia to navigate a complex diplomatic terrain. It had to balance its ties with Israel, its partnership with Iran, its engagement with Turkey, and its expanding relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Moscow strove to remain equidistant to each regional actor, abandoning an actor only when protecting its own interest.
The coordination between Russia and Iran in the context of the Syrian conflict has been more tactical (rather than ideological) in nature. In the aftermath of Russia’s military intervention in Syria, the two states sought to compete for influence and cooperate on policies ensuring the survival of the Assad regime. While both countries continue to support the regime, their approaches differ considerably. For Russia, restoration of the Assad regime is about bolstering the Syrian state and its institutions. While Iran has expanded its support for nonstate actors in Syria, Russia has created a fifth division within the Syrian army, which includes a panoply of former rebels and has ensured continued Russian influence in the army. Although Russia’s Ukraine conflict has shifted its focus and resources elsewhere, the Kremlin continues to yield influence in Syria, as evidenced by recent appointments of pro-Moscow generals within Syria’s powerful air force intelligence. At the same time, the strategic and military cooperation between the two countries increased significantly, with Iran providing drones and weapons to the Russian army. However, this did not have implications elsewhere, as both actors continue to compartmentalize their regional roles. Moscow's recent support of the UAE's claims over three disputed islands with Iran, to Tehran’s dismay, demonstrates that Russia's balancing act remains in place. In Sudan, Russia and Iran are on opposite sides. As per multiple media reports, Iran and Ukraine support the Sudanese military led by Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fatah al Burhan, while Russia and the UAE back its adversaries, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamad Degalo (aka Hemedti). This approach is driven in part by the goal of greater access to natural resources and maritime ports.
This expanding military and political partnership with Iran has also not limited Russia’s direct collaboration with Israel. Rather, it has shaped Israel’s response to the Ukraine conflict and highlighted some of their shared interests in the region. Since its military intervention, Russia has coordinated with Israel over strikes on Iranian targets, as well as Tehran-backed groups—the most recent of which were the April 1, 2024, bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus and the targeting of an Iraqi militia’s base in southern Damascus on May 9. This coordination is influenced by a number of factors such as the strong demographic connections between the two countries, whereby some 15 percent of Israelis speak Russian. Putin has stated that “Israel is a Russian-speaking country,” while Israel continues to provide a residence and tax haven to Russian oligarchs. Moreover, both countries share an interest in maintaining a relatively weakened Iranian presence in Syria. Unsurprisingly, a deal to sell Russian planes to Iran fell through because of Israeli and American pressure, while Israel blocked the sale of Iron Dome missile defense technology to Ukraine and refrained from imposing sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
This balancing act between the different players is also evident in Russia’s approach to the most recent conflict in Gaza. While Russia failed to clearly condemn Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 (in spite of the death of sixteen of its own citizens), releasing Russian hostages quickly became the center of Moscow’s interaction with the militant organization. The Russian effort resulted in the release of three Russian-Israeli hostages. Moscow also hosted Palestinian reconciliation talks in March 2024, but they were more beneficial in highlighting Russia’s role than in yielding actual results.
Finally, Russia has also sought to balance its support for the Assad regime with its tenuous but tactical cooperation with Turkey, which has deepened in the aftermath of the Ukraine invasion. Initial tensions regarding Russia’s military involvement in Syria in 2015, particularly in support of the Assad regime—a target for removal by Ankara—eased with the creation of the Astana framework. This framework provided a platform for both countries to coordinate and engage in mutual interests. This included deconfliction over Turkey’s military operations in northeastern Syria by countering U.S. support for Syrian Kurds and undermining the semi-autonomous entity that has emerged from the rubble of the Syrian state.
Conclusion
Russia’s military intervention in Syria in 2015 reflected a more assertive foreign policy and demonstrated an interest in a wider regional role. It allowed Moscow to reserve a seat among other players who seek to design a new regional security architecture. However, Russia’s ability to expand its influence to Lebanon and beyond has been restricted. Although Russia maintains military prowess in Syria and key relationships with involved stakeholders such as Israel, Iran, and Turkey, as well as nonstate actors Hezbollah and Hamas, it remains unable to play an effective role in impacting broader regional challenges, such as the ongoing Gaza conflict. Russia only managed to secure the release three of its citizens from the Gaza strip, even though Moscow received a Hamas delegation after the October 7 attack. Similarly, despite its clout as the world’s largest and most powerful Orthodox nation, Russia has not gained greater influence in shaping church politics.
Similarly, Russia’s ambitions and its Syrian “success” remains incomplete given the continued failure of the Syrian state to reinforce its authority or achieve serious political reconciliation with its domestic adversaries. A wider collapse of the Syrian state would seriously hinder Moscow’s ambitions and taint its image as an important actor in the region.
Consequently, while Russia managed to leverage its Syria intervention to bolster its arm sales and relations with the Gulf region,the return of Syria to the Arab League has yet to trigger postconflict relief and reconstruction support, contrary to Russia’s hopes. Moscow’s ambitions for a wider influence in the region will most likely resume once the Ukraine conflict ends. Until then, Russia’s approach in Syria and the broader Levant will remain a delicate balancing act.
In this series on Russia in the Middle East and North Africa, Carnegie scholars and external experts analyze how Russia has used various foreign policy tools to mount a recent comeback in the region after years of absence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contributors to the series also examine the impacts of Russian policies on questions of peace, security, and democratic development in the Middle East and North Africa.
