Back to Russian intervention in Syria, where the Kremlin took advantage of the inaction of the United States and its European allies, to the detriment of the civilian population. As a general rehearsal of war in Ukraine.
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The images of Marioupol devastated by the Russian bombings in the spring have revived the memory of Grozny and the martyrdom of Aleppo in 2016. Faced with the strategy of the burned earth deployed by Moscow against an enemy which she erected in bad Absolute, here “the Nazi”, there “the terrorist”, Ukraine and Syria have now destinies linked.
The civil war in the Pays des Assad was the Russian army training ground and the place of projection of the ambitions of Vladimir Putin. “Syria was the Russian laboratory to prepare for its intervention in Ukraine,” summarizes Andrew Caler, former member of the National Security Council in Washington, in the documentary Russia. The Syrian laboratory.
of Russia in Syria, Europe in the United States, journalist Edith Bouvier conducted the investigation. Through the testimonies of American, Russian and French officials, experts as well as Syrian opponents, the journalist, broken to the Syrian field, sheds light on the way in which the intervention in Syria, encouraged by the Western renunciation, Has shaped the Kremlin foreign policy in the last decade and reinforced the adventurism of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
An ancient friendship
The friendship that unites Russia and Syria is old. She dates back to the time when the Soviet Union supported Hafez al-Assad to establish his power after the 1970 coup. When her son Bashar is looking for allies to watch the challenge that has been raging in the country since 2011, With the support of Westerners, he turned to Iran and the former Russian ally. Moscow has the same aversion to “Arab Spring” as for “color revolutions”. Western interventionism in Iraq and then in Libya scalded it. From veto to the United Nations Security Council to send mercenaries of the Wagner group, Russia is ready to do anything to maintain President Assad to power and to support the repression he leads against his people.
“For Vladimir Putin, the goal is to reduce the influence of the West as much as possible. I think the United States should have realized it earlier,” said former French president François Holland. The American turnaround in Syria will serve the ambitions of Vladimir Putin. The turning point intervenes on August 21, 2013 when sarin gas falls in an area held by the opposition near Damascus, killing more than 1,400 people, including 500 children. The red line defined a year earlier by American president Barack Obama is crossed. However, he decides not to intervene.
Moscow sees it as an admission of weakness and an opportunity to be seized. Six months later, Russia invades Crimea. In the fall of 2015, she launched an offensive in Syria to fly to the aid of Bashar al-Assad, who lost most of her territory, under the guise of anti-terrorist struggle. The jihadists of the Islamic State Organization (IS), who have seized the east of the country, are however not a priority of Moscow. The main target of the brutal violence of the Damascus regime and its Russian sponsor is the opposition. She gradually loses ground, condemned by the passivity of the West. “If the Americans had been more active in Syria, Putin would have thought about it twice before invading Ukraine,” concludes Andrew Caler.