By Genevieve Casagrande
Key Takeaway: Russian
air operations in Syria bolster the legitimacy and staying power of Syrian
President Bashar al Assad. Russia seeks to preserve its client regime in Syria
and thereby ensure its foothold in the Middle East in line with its strategic
objectives. The vast majority of Russia’s air
operations in Aleppo Province have targeted mainstream Aleppo-based opposition
groups, despite Russia’s insistence that its intervention aims exclusively to
eliminate ISIS, Syrian al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra (JN), and other
“terrorist organizations.” The agreement on a “cessation
of hostilities” announced by world powers on February 11 fails to
restrict the military operations of Russia, Iran, or the regime in Aleppo,
Syria’s second-largest city. The regime and its foreign backers thus remain
free to continue their efforts to besiege opposition forces in Aleppo City.
They have captured additional terrain on February 12 and 13, showing their
intent to continue exploiting their recent gains. The ground campaign and Russian
airstrike patterns indicate that the pro-regime forces intend complete the
encirclement in the outer cordon northwest of Aleppo.
Russia’s
air campaign in Syria has brought Syrian President Bashar al Assad within five
kilometers
of achieving his long-standing strategic objective to encircle and besiege
Aleppo City, Syria’s largest urban center and a key opposition stronghold since
2012. Pro-regime forces supported by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
fighters and Iranian proxy forces severed the primary opposition held-supply
line to Aleppo City on February 3 during operations to relieve the partially-besieged
regime-held towns of Nubl and Zahraa. Pro-regime forces subsequently began to
expand territorial control north of Aleppo, clearing at least two additional opposition-held
villages on February 5 – 6. Russia directly enabled these
gains through a heavy campaign of airstrikes and likely through the assistance
of Russian
Special Forces reported to be operating in the province.
Pro-regime
forces can sever the last remaining opposition supply line into the city at two
discrete locations: an inner cordon which regime forces are 5 km away from
completing, and an outer cordon which regime forces are over 10 km away from
completing. Russia has concentrated strikes in the outer cordon northwest of
the city, indicating that this is where regime forces will likely complete the
siege. This outer cordon is rural terrain and therefore more easily cleared than
the dense urban terrain inside the city or the industrial sector in the
northern city limits. The rural area northwest of Aleppo is a key transit zone
for supplies to
reach opposition forces inside the city from their last remaining supply line
running eastwards from the Turkish border. A review of Russia’s airstrikes from
October 2015 – February 2016 displays Russia’s consistent targeting of the
outer cordon, and its territorial gains on February 12 – 13 confirm their
intent to complete the cordon here.
Russian Airstrikes Set Conditions for Encirclement
of Aleppo
Russia
began setting conditions for this encirclement of Aleppo in mid-October 2015, just two
weeks after beginning its air campaign in Syria. The city has evidently been an
enduring campaign priority, but required multiple simultaneous and successive
operations, as Soviet doctrine would recommend. Russian airstrikes heavily
targeted the southern Aleppo countryside from October – December, drawing
opposition forces away from critical frontlines inside the city and northern
countryside. The pro-regime forces had as their first operational objective reaching
the M5 highway that links Aleppo and Damascus in order to set conditions for
future operations west into Idlib Province. The airstrikes indeed facilitated significant gains by pro-regime
forces in the southern
countryside. They achieved the operational objective by seizing the
opposition-held town of Khan Touman on December 20. Their second operational objective was to
encircle ISIS positions east of Aleppo City that threaten the regime’s stronghold
of Safira, a key area of interest to both the regime and Iran. To that end, Russian airstrikes since October
also targeted ISIS in the eastern Aleppo countryside in order to enable
pro-regime ground forces to push westward from the Kuweires Airbase. The
campaign to complete the encirclement of the terrain between Safira and
Kuweiris remains ongoing as of February 13. Russia nevertheless largely stopped
air operations to the south of Aleppo City by January 12 as it began to
dedicate a significant amount of its air power to opposition positions north of
the city in preparation for the upcoming regime offensive there.
Airstrikes
Support Kurds after Turkey Downed a Russian Warplane
Russian airstrike patterns changed after a Turkish jet downed a Russian
warplane on
November 24, after Russia violated Turkish airspace. Russian warplanes immediately
began conducting airstrikes that assisted Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection
Units (YPG) operations against the opposition in Northern Aleppo Province near
the Turkish border. Russian warplanes also increased the volume of strikes
against the supply lines that sustain Syrian armed opposition forces in Aleppo
Province. The targeting of these supply lines undermined the ability of
opposition forces backed by Turkey to defend against regime and YPG forces
simultaneously, and ultimately overwhelmed opposition defenses.
Russia’s sustained bombardment of the opposition’s supply line from the
Turkish border north of Aleppo city enabled Kurdish forces to advance within
meters of the key border town of Azaz. Syrian Kurdish YPG and allied
opposition elements seized the opposition-held Menagh Airbase, south of Azaz,
and five nearby villages by February 10. This advance capitalized on the disposition
of opposition forces further south against the regime to penetrate a previously
strong defensive line.
Russian pressure on opposition
forces in Aleppo and facilitation of Kurdish gains accomplishes numerous strategic
objectives. Russia is simultaneously portraying Turkey as a regional aggressor
through a sophisticated information campaign in order to deter any decisive
action by Turkey to assert its strategic interests in
Syria. Russia seeks deliberately to exploit
and expand disagreements between the U.S. and Turkey about Kurdish issues. Turkey
opposes American support to the YPG, and the controversy over this support limits
the effectiveness of the anti-ISIS coalition by creating a sustained rift
between the two countries about their respective goals in Syria. The advance by
YPG forces north of Aleppo City on terrain critical to Turkey heightens
Turkish-American tensions by emboldening the YPG. Russia is concentrating airstrikes along the highway through Azaz to cut
off Turkish supplies to Aleppo, claiming that the Turks are facilitating ISIS.
Reports of Turkish shelling on YPG positions near Azaz on February 13
demonstrate the risk that the Turks will escalate in response to YPG gains and
Russian airstrikes along its border. Russia is thereby also challenging NATO by
provoking Turkey and trying to show the limitations of the principle of
collective defense.
Conclusion
Russia obscures its true
intentions in Syria through an active disinformation campaign. Its primary
objective in Syria is to maintain an air and naval base on the Mediterranean by
ensuring the preservation of the Assad regime. The distribution of Russian
airstrikes in Aleppo Province demonstrates that its air campaign is primarily
directed at weakening the armed Syrian opposition generally, not ISIS or al
Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. The “cessation of hostilities” agreed upon the
International Syria Support Group (ISSG) on February 11 will likely only
further the regime’s campaign to complete the siege of Aleppo, which Russia has
been setting conditions for since October 2015.
The U.S. must seek solutions to the violence in Aleppo in
ways that recognize that Russia, Iran, and the regime are belligerents to the
conflict. Ceasefire agreements that do not police the actions of these three
actors will likely result in increased violence and preclude any future
political process that is agreed upon by legitimate representatives of the
armed opposition. Russia, Iran, and the regime may soon besiege opposition
forces and an estimated 300,000 civilians in Aleppo City. At the same time, the
Russian air campaign has deliberately targeted hospitals, markets, water
treatment stations, and other civilian targets in Aleppo Province in order to
punish and depopulate opposition-held terrain. The U.S. must therefore
mitigate the humanitarian disaster and prevent the collapse of the opposition in
the province. U.S. policymakers should demand that Russia cease all airstrikes
in Syria as part of any “cessation of hostilities” or nationwide ceasefire. The
U.S. should also authorize humanitarian aid drops in Aleppo City and
increase military support to U.S.-backed opposition groups in Aleppo. The U.S.
should consider establishing a humanitarian safe zone north of Aleppo City
in partnership with Turkey in order to forestall a Turkish intervention against
the YPG in Syria and ameliorate the refugee crisis along the Syrian-Turkish
border. A safe zone north of Aleppo City could also help opposition forces
facing encirclement survive by placing pressure on the regime’s northern flank
and positioning Turkey to provide artillery support to the opposition inside
Aleppo City.