Three months into his military intervention in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved his central goal of stabilising the Assad regime and, with the costs relatively low, could sustain military operations at this level for years, US officials and military analysts say.
The US officials stressed that Putin could face serious problems the longer his involvement in the more than four-year-old civil war drags on.
Yet since its campaign began on September 30, Russia has suffered minimal casualties and, despite domestic fiscal woes, is handily covering the operation’s cost, which analysts estimate at $1-2bn a year.
The expense, analysts and officials said, is being kept in check by plummeting oil prices that, while hurting Russia’s overall economy, has helped its defence budget stretch further by reducing the costs of fueling aircraft and ships. It has also been able to tap a stockpile of conventional bombs dating to the Soviet era.
Quagmire?
Russia’s intervention also appears to have strengthened its hand at the negotiating table. In recent weeks, Washington has engaged more closely with Russia in seeking a settlement to the war and backed off a demand for the immediate departure of Assad as part of any political transition.
US officials have not publicly defined what a quagmire would look like for Russia. But US President Barack Obama has raised the Soviet Union’s disastrous decade-long Afghanistan occupation from 1979.
US officials said Russia’s military footprint is relatively light. It comprises a long-time naval facility in Tartus, a major air base near the port city of Latakia, a second under expansion near Homs and several lesser posts.
There are an estimated 5,000 Russian personnel in Syria, including pilots, ground crews, intelligence personnel, security units protecting the Russian bases and advisers to the Syrian government forces.
Russia has lost an airliner to an IS-claimed attack over Egypt that killed 224 people, and an Su-24 supersonic bomber shot down by Turkey. It is also allied with an exhausted Syrian army that is suffering manpower shortages and facing US-backed rebels using anti-tank missiles.