Russian military: Moving from Syria to Libya?

Are they or are they not withdrawing from Syria? That is the question Middle East analysts have been asking about the Russian troops for the past several days.

Open source investigators, looking at satellite pictures and online air traffic tracking, have noted significant moves by Russia at its long-held Syrian bases since the regime of its ally, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, was toppled nearly two weeks ago. They've seen attack helicopters and an S-400 long-range air defense system dismantled for travel, people with suitcases waiting to leave and large cargo planes being loaded.

Additionally, Russian navy vessels left their Syrian harbor on December 11, two days before the fall of the Assad regime.

Russian officials have denied their troops are leaving Syria and reported they were negotiating with the rebel opposition group, which led the offensive that toppled the Assad regime and who are now setting up Syria's transitional government.

Russia has two important military bases in Syria: The Tartus naval base, set up in 1971, and an air base at Hmeimim, established in 2015.

Tartus is Russia's only formal naval base outside former Soviet territory and a Russian presence there grew before Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine in order "to counter, deter, and monitor any NATO operations in the Mediterranean," the Institute for the Study of War recently noted.  

Hmeimim is used as a logistics and staging post for Russian activities in Africa and came under Russian control shortly after Russia entered the Syrian civil war. Russia helped Assad repress anti-government rebels, and Russian air power likely turned the tide of the war in Assad's favor. But since mid-December, the people the Russians once bombed have been in charge of Syria.

So far, both HTS and Russia have been very pragmatic and have been in negotiations, Nanar Hawach, a senior analyst for Syria at the think tank Crisis Group, told DW.

"Right now Russia is operating under HTS' protection, with HTS forces protecting Russian convoys driving to the naval base and air base," he explained. "But we should also keep in mind that Russia played a very prominent and important role in the fight against HTS."

This makes Russia's future military presence in Syria potentially problematic. Russia was relocating air-defense systems and other advanced weapons from Syria to bases it controls in Libya, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing unnamed US and Libyan officials.

Moving to Libya?

Analysts point to signifiers like the removal of valuable military hardware from Syria, Russia's suspension of wheat exports to Syria — over the past years, it has been Syria's main supplier — and HTS' refusal of Russian offers of humanitarian aid. They also say that wherever the Russian naval vessels from Tartus eventually end up will be an important indicator of where Russia is headed next — especially if the ships dock at the Libyan port of Tobruk.

Right now, it's all just speculation, according to Jalel Harchaoui, a political scientist and expert on Libya at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, or RUSI, in the UK. 

Whether the Russians stay in Syria or go, there are certain incontrovertible facts that will change how they operate in Syria, he told DW.

"They're never going to be able to stay with the same level of comfort, security and assurance as before," Harchaoui said. "They're going to have trouble guaranteeing their own logistics, electricity, water, food. They also know that when you run a [foreign] base you need a certain friendliness from the community around you and also the state, in terms of intelligence sharing. All of that is now lost."

Nothing is clear yet, agreed Wolfram Lacher, a senior associate and expert on Libya at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

"As far as I can tell, what we are not seeing yet is any direct movement between the Syrian bases and Libya," he said. "But, obviously, as the Syrian bases become more precarious, the importance of Libya increases."

Libya was already becoming more important for Russia, Lacher and Harchaoui pointed out.

In 2024, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported that Russia had reinforced runways and perimeter defenses at Libyan air bases, built new structures and delivered weaponry.

A threat to NATO

Since 2014, Libya has been split in two, with opposing governments located in the east and west of the country. An UN-backed administration known as the Government of National Unity, or GNU, is in the west, and its rival, known as the House of Representatives, is based in the east, in Tobruk. The latter is supported by former warlord-turned-politician Khalifa Haftar, who controls various armed groups in this area.

At various times over the last decade, each government has tried — and failed — to wrest control from the other, but the conflict is currently stalemated, resulting in shaky security.

"Over the past few years, those Libyan factions have been locked in a stalemate that has kept their country largely free from major conflict, but that has depended largely on … two foreign powers with significant military forces on the ground, Russia and Turkey," Frederic Wehrey, a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote last week.

"Assad's downfall … could affect this fragile equilibrium," he suggested, arguing that Libya's frozen conflict could potentially go the same way as Syria's did and relapse into conflict.

This may hinge on Russia's next move. If Russia convinces Haftar to let it establish a more permanent base in Libya, this would present a major challenge to NATO.

"The Russians have wanted a naval base in Libya for several years now and the Americans' main policy objective in Libya for the last two years is to prevent this," Lacher explained. " Up until now Haftar has always tried to balance different foreign supporters against each other to avoid becoming dependent on a single one."

So current events put Haftar in a very difficult position, Lacher said.

Harchaoui said he believes it's too early to tell what will happen but presented two plausible scenarios. In one, the Russians remain in Syria but everything becomes more uncomfortable, expensive and laborious for them, he said.

"They just absorb the cost, but it's still roughly business as usual," he told DW.

In the other scenario, Haftar's permission for Russia to establish itself firmly in Libya would gradually become apparent. At that stage certain forces — for example, in NATO — who oppose Russian entrenchment in Libya might organize sabotage missions or even train fighters opposed to Haftar. 

"It will be gradual, a soft inflexion point. It won't be fireworks," Harchaoui concluded. "But it's quite possible that then we might look back and go, yes, Haftar made a mistake by saying yes to the Russians and, yes, this all started with Assad's fall."

Edited by: Sean M. Sinico