Centrum Stosunków Międzynarodowych - 15 March 2016: President Putin withdraws majority of Russian forces from Syria

On the 15th of March 2016, Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has declared the immediate withdrawal of the majority of Russian forces present in Syria. The Russian mission which started 6 months earlier in September, coincided with the start of the Syrian peace talks in Geneva of March 2016 (initiated earlier in February) and can be seen as sign that Russia believes it has succeeded in protecting the Syrian regime under Assad from collapsing and to have won Russian political leverage on the peace negotiations. Militarily and politically, Syria is the main element for Russian influence in the Middle East and the Mediterranean and the only country outside of the former Soviet Union with Russian military bases. With its military involvement in the conflict, Russia has secured its bases in Syria and contacts in the Syrian military. It now has to force Assad to negotiate a peace deal and retrieving Russian forces has given Assad more incentives to do so.

Other countries are sceptic about the withdrawal, pointing at earlier large scale Russian offences during peace talks concerning Ukraine in February 2015. US president Obama welcomes the reduction in violence but stresses that a political transition is required to end the violence in Syria.

For more information on the latest March 2016 Syrian peace talks in Geneva, click here.