Russian air mission in Syria completed: reasons and implications
On March 14 Russia announced
its troops will soon be pulled out of Syria – the military operation
launched on Sept. 30 of last year at the request of the president Bashar
al-Assad, is near completion. Russia has made every effort to normalize
the situation in a country that has been engulfed in chaos for the last
five years.
Everything fell into place to make such a step feasible: the new peace treaty between
Assad’s government troops and the opposition forces, which was brokered
by Russia and the US on Feb. 27; the successful advances made by Syrian
troops (including the opposition and the Kurds); and the government’s
recapture of some regions formerly held by Daesh and Jabhat Al Nusra
terrorists. Thus, the Russian military’s goals for its operations have
been met.
Since Sept. 30, 2015, when the Russian president ordered Russia’s
Aerospace Forces to launch strikes against Daesh and other terrorist
groups, whole provinces have been liberated from the militants; people
who until recently were planning to set off for Europe have now decided
to stay home; and there is now hope for peace. This hope has been
inspired not only by the success of the Russian pilots who carried out
dozens of sorties each day, but also the success of the diplomats who
finally – and only after Russia’s intervention – called attention to the
problem of the global terrorist threat that the Russian president had warned the West about back in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference. As we know, at that time his words were simply ignored.
