Tartus: Russia in retreat?
The Memorandum | No. 22.2024
At 13:30 on 3rd of December, Yoon Suk Yeol, President of South Korea, made a shock televised announcement declaring martial law in South Korea. What followed was hours of drama, bordering on the farcical, with the world watching on. The fallout of this event remains to be seen, but it is likely to go down in history as one of the worst ever attempts at a coup. Understandably, such a surprising and chaotic turn of events dominated global headlines, but halfway across the world, something unexpected had just occurred in Syria.
Just days ago, rebel groups had broken out from Idlib province and stormed into Aleppo, taking control of Syria’s second city from Bashar al-Assad’s (the dictator of the rump Syrian state) forces. The rebels had taken advantage of the reduced presence of two of Assad’s strongest supporters: Russian forces, now heavily focused on the fighting in Ukraine, and Hezbollah forces, being dismantled by Israel. The rebel groups did not stop at Aleppo and quickly advanced southwards towards Hama, the next major urban centre on the road towards Damascus.
Although most Russian forces, previously in place to help Assad contain his opponents, had long since returned home, some remained in the country – including a collection of Russian warships stationed at the naval base in Tartus. Tartus is a vital logistics hub for supporting Russia’s overseas foreign policy objectives, enabling the Kremlin, which lacks any meaningful at-sea logistics capabilities, to support its clients and irritate its adversaries.
It will have been missed by many amid the shock factor of events in South Korea, but on the 3rd of December (fearing the speed at which Syrian rebel forces were advancing) the entire collection of Russian ships moored at Tartus bolted from the base and into the Mediterranean. To mask the fact Russia was unable to guarantee the protection of either its client regime or its naval base, a live-firing exercise was hurriedly put together for these naval assets. The total force amounted to two Gorskhov class frigates, one Grigorovich class frigate, two auxiliaries, and an Improved-Kilo class submarine.
This turn of events puts Russia in a tricky position and presents an opportunity for the United Kingdom (UK) and its allies to deepen the humiliation or to weaken Russia’s ability to support overseas operations from Tartus – ideally both.
How could Britain, alongside allies, weaken Russia’s image? Russia has worked hard over the last two decades to conjure the perception of itself as a global power. Serious analysts know this is mostly a mirage, but it does help Russia achieve buy-in with many developing countries. Anything which can be done to help shatter this image should be pursued. If the rebels do overrun the naval base at Tartus, the options for the marooned Russian ships would be limited.
Unless Turkey opens the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, the Russian flotilla would have to return to Russia’s Baltic or Northern fleet bases. Assembling a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) task force to shadow them would create a great opportunity for some global messaging. The image of a Russian naval group being escorted out of the Mediterranean by a powerful NATO naval force would certainly do Russia’s global power narrative no favours. Announcing live fire drills along the route Russian forces are likely to take, to force them to extend their journey, would only add insult to injury. Any of these activities should be done with as much publicity as possible.
However, such an opportunity relies on the naval base at Tartus being overrun. This may be unlikely. Tartus is situated in the Alawite heartland of Syria; the Alawites being Assad’s most ardent supporters. Assad’s forces may not have fought hard to defend Aleppo, but it is reasonable to assume they would fight a lot harder for their homeland and the rebel groups may not be willing to push into these territories. It is entirely possible that once the Russian warships have spent a few days in the Mediterranean to see how events develop, they may simply return to Tartus.
If the UK was feeling particularly bold, it could attempt to open a channel with these groups to encourage and enable them to push to Tartus, and to destroy the naval facilities there. If this proves unpalatable or there is no desire to engage on the other side, Britain could explore options to support a Ukrainian operation to attack the facilities at the now mostly empty naval base. Either option would hobble Russia’s navy, options which will quickly disappear should the Kremlin decide the naval base is not in fact in danger.
It was an easy event to miss, but Russia’s withdrawal from Tartus shows just how much Russia’s ability to influence global events has been hindered by its decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Assad is not alone in essentially being abandoned by Russia; not too long ago, Armenia was let down in relation to Azerbaijan by its erstwhile Russian ally and is now attempting to look elsewhere for a protector.
Just as Russia seeks to undermine free and open countries with disruptive activities, the UK should seize the initiative and be more ambitious in its approach to unbalancing Russia. As Russian power wanes, Britain and its allies should ramp up the pressure and weaken the Kremlin’s ability to generate mayhem. The events in Tartus have offered up one such opportunity to dislocate Russia’s international posture by damaging its international image and potentially destroying one of its primary enablers of power projection in the Euro-Atlantic theatre.
William Freer is a Research Fellow in National Security at the Council on Geostrategy, where he works on strategic advantage and maritime affairs.
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