Russian involvement in the Syrian civil war

Russian military delivered 5 tons of ammunition and weapons to the People's Defense Units (part of the Syrian Democratic Forces) in Sheikh Maqsoud in their operations against ISIL in Syria.

[22] In April 1977, Hafez al-Assad visited Moscow, and met with Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin among others, as a sign of improved Syrian relations with the USSR.

In March 2012, critics saw the position of the naval facility in Tartus as a chief motivating factor for Russia to speak out in favor of the Assad government maintaining stability in the region.

[clarification needed][31][32] At least since mid 2013, Chechen and other Russian North Caucasus volunteers have been fighting in the Syrian Civil War against the government of Bashar al-Assad.

[44] "A harder line from Russia would be a blow to Syria which relies heavily on Russian military equipment and has long-standing ties to Moscow", the American nbcnews.com wrote that day.

[44] On 19 July, Russian Prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev said he was working with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to find consensus for a strategy to persuade the Syrian government to abandon violence and begin a constructive dialogue with protesters.

[46] On 3 August, Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin stated that Russia will not oppose a UN resolution condemning the violence in Syria as long as it does not include sanctions or other "pressures".

[51] According to Reuters, the arms embargo included in the sanctions would prevent Russian firms (the main source of Syrian weaponry) from selling to Syria.

[51] Russia proposed a second "rival" resolution to be voted on, described as "toothless" by Western diplomats, which did not include sanctions or other punitive measures, but rather urged Syria to speed up the process of its reforms.

[31] In March, Lavrov said in a televised interview that Syria's leadership had ignored Russia's warnings and made "very many mistakes" that helped drag the country to the brink of civil war.

On 20 April, the Security Council announced an agreement to expand the number of U.N. cease-fire observers in Syria from 30 to 300, as well as to allow Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to decide on the peacekeepers' deployment based on conditions on the ground.

[61] When the texts were merged, the portion imposing sanctions on the Assad government for failure to comply with the peacekeeping plan was removed, as requested by Russia and China.

[61] The Russian draft also did not contain language dictating that U.N. peacekeepers' presence in Syria was a condition of Assad's agreement to return troops and heavy weapons to their barracks.

After the peace plan was passed, Russian's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin relayed Russia's support of the agreement to the media, while other nations expressed frustration with the process and lack of progress in ending the violence so far.

[62] A Bloomberg article (April 2012) said that although Russia has tried to retain the image of a peacemaker in this conflict, Russian diplomats have repeatedly criticized the potential condemnation of Assad by western nations.

[66] As talk of UN intervention intensified, a foreign affairs committee chair in the Russian government, hardened Russia's stance, moving it further away from the earlier condemnation of Damascus, saying that "We have very strong doubts that those people who were shot at point-blank [range] and were stabbed, that this was the action of forces loyal to President Assad.

[71] On 12 September 2013, The New York Times published an op-ed by Vladimir Putin urging the United States to avoid unilateral military action and work with international cooperation in support of a negotiated solution to the Syrian conflict.

[72] On 15 September 2015, in Dushanbe at a meeting of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, Putin called for a united, international effort together with Syria to fight the threat of ISIL[73] but also said that Syrian President Assad "is ready to integrate the same [healthy] part of the opposition into the state's administration".

Abdel Baset Seda, a member of the Syrian National Council's executive committee, told Reuters that the SNC had not received any formal invitation for such talks, but would decline if one arrived: "Our position has not changed and it is that there is no dialogue with (President Bashar al-Assad)".

[7] According to Martti Ahtisaari who held discussions about Syria with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council in February 2012, a Russian three-point plan, put forth by its ambassador, Vitaly Churkin included a proposal for Assad to cede power.

[8] 7 November 2013, Russia again announced it was trying to broker talks in Moscow between the Syrian government and opposition, seeing that the U.S. and Russian negotiators failed to agree on whether or not Assad should be forced out of office.

[97] In January 2014, a Russian company AR 514 (514 авиационный ремонтный завод) posted photos in their portfolio showing them performing repairs and upgrade on Su-24 identified to belong to Syrian fleet.

Insurgent control of the area would separate the coastal cities of Latakia- where Russian aircraft are based- and Tartous, where Russia operates a naval facility from Damascus.

However, in November 2016 Reuters published a report that contained evidence that Russian forces were playing a more substantial role in ground combat by employing contractors recruited through private agencies registered in foreign jurisdictions.

According to the report, despite their unofficial status, these troops operated in coordination with Russia's regular military and were given benefits back home normally available to serving soldiers.

[122] In May 2016, Reuters published a Special Report titled "How Russia allowed homegrown radicals to go and fight in Syria" that, based on first-hand accounts, said that at least in the period between 2012 and 2014 the Russian government agencies appeared to run a programme to facilitate and encourage Russian radicals and militants to leave Russia and go to Turkey and then on to Syria; the persons in question had joined jihadist groups, some fighting with the ISIL.

In June 2016 Nikolai Bordyuzha estimated that 10,000 militants from ex-Soviet states were fighting alongside jihadist groups in the Middle East, including Syria.

[133] In September 2015, one of Russia's Muslim (Sunni) leaders, Chief Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin said: "We fully back the use of a contingent of Russian armed forces in the battle against international terrorism.

In early January 2016, Patriarch Kirill publicly endorsed Russia's military operation in Syria, saying that the campaign in that country that "is literally our neighbour" was "defence of the fatherland".

[139] In January 2012, Human Rights Watch criticised Russia for "repeating the mistakes of Western governments during the Arab Spring by continuing to support a longstanding authoritarian ally [Assad] whose people have clearly expressed the desire for democratic change".