Assad’s fall is huge blow for Putin, highlighting fragility of his own rule

Analysis by Nathan Hodge, CNN

(CNN) — The world now knows the colors of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s parachute: the Russian tricolor.

Assad’s flight to Moscow following the swift collapse of his regime means more than just the loss of a client state for the Kremlin.

The fall of the House of Assad deals a major blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aspirations as a Middle East power broker – and raises new questions about the fragility of his own regime.

Putin’s opponents are already cheering.

“Minus one dictator and ally of Putin,” wrote prominent Russian opposition activist Ilya Yashin on X, posting a photo of an Assad banner in flames.

“Putin has thrown Assad under the bus to prolong his war in Ukraine,” commented former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “His resources are scarce, and he is not as strong as he pretends.”

For observers of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Assad’s departure raises some striking historical parallels.

Assad now joins a onetime Ukrainian counterpart in exile: Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine for Russia in 2014 after weeks of street protests that culminated in a bloody crackdown.

Syrians are now roaming through Assad’s abandoned presidential palace in Damascus, much as Ukrainians were able to visit the grounds of Mezhyhirya, the garish estate once occupied by Yanukovych.

Mezhyhirya was refashioned as a museum of corruption.

Yanukovych has not returned to Ukraine since his ouster, even though Russia now effectively controls more than 20% of Ukrainian territory following its full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

And unlike Assad, whose forces appeared to surrender Damascus without a fight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held fast as Russian troops approached Kyiv. (Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who also backed by the United States, did waver and Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in 2021.)

Assad’s flight from Syria was more than a moment for Ukrainians to revel in a symbolic setback for Putin. The Syrian regime crumbled at the moment when Zelensky was in France to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron and US President-elect Donald Trump ahead of the reopening ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral, where the Ukrainian leader received a standing ovation.

Ukraine is bracing for the consequences of Trump’s re-election victory amid fears that the incoming administration could withdraw support for Kyiv. But the implosion of Assad’s regime could potentially weaken Putin’s hand in negotiations over ending the war in Ukraine, particularly if Putin’s bellicose threats in recent weeks of nuclear escalation are perceived as hollow.

As rebel fighters closed in on Damascus, Trump himself nodded to the Kremlin’s narrowing range of options in a post on social media. “Russia, because they are so tied up in Ukraine, and with the loss there of over 600,000 soldiers, seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years,” he wrote.

But the collapse of the Assad regime represents a very real military loss to Putin. In the wake of rebel advances, video emerged showing the toppling of a monument to Assad in Tartus, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, where Moscow has kept a naval base since the Cold War. Russia has also relied on its airbase at Hmeimim, in Syria’s Latakia province, as a hub for projecting power in the Middle East.

In a visit to Hmeimim in 2017, Putin pledged that the two bases would “continue to operation on a permanent basis,” warning that if “the terrorists” – i.e., the opponents of Assad – “raise their heads again, we will deal unprecedented strikes unlike anything they have seen.”

When Putin intervened directly in Syria nearly a decade ago, sending his air force and Russian mercenaries to prop up Assad’s losing forces in concert with Iran, his escalation paid dividends: He bought time for Assad, brought more of Syria’s geography under government control, and showed himself as an essential player in regional and global politics.

Once shunned at the G20 summit in 2014 after his annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine and his stoking of separatism in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Putin was the man to speak to a year later. By doubling down on Assad, the Kremlin leader went from zero to hero, at least in the geopolitical war of perceptions.

Putin’s pledges of support for Assad a decade ago now seem empty. But it may still be early to write off Putin as a rival negotiator and potential adversary, despite the ouster of his client.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a close observer of Putin, suggested in a post on X that Assad’s defeat may harden Putin’s negotiating position on Ukraine.

“Putin may raise additional conditions and will not agree to negotiations readily. He will insist that it is now up to the West and Ukraine to change their stance,” she said, noting Trump’s calls on Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

“Note that Assad’s collapse has also shaken Putin, making him less inclined to demonstrate flexibility with Ukraine. The war in Ukraine has, to some extent, cost him Syria, which reinforces his unwillingness to compromise.”

Putin has long seen himself locked in an adversarial conflict with the West, and he faces a warrant from the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

The ouster of Assad may only harden his position.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.