In recent weeks, a flurry of commentary from prominent voices and publications in Russia has seen a wave of criticism directed at Syria’s Assad regime. From RIA FAN to Pravda, Kommersant and the Valdai Club, accusations have been leveled against the regime of corruption, warlordism, and incompetence, as well as an obsession with achieving unrealistic military objectives at the expense of dwindling resources, reconstruction, and political and economic reforms. Public polling undertaken in regime-held areas of Syria by an organization linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin — a close friend of President Vladimir Putin and the owner of the infamous paramilitary outfit the Wagner Group — found Bashar al-Assad had only a 31 percent approval rating. 71 percent of respondents saw corruption as a serious issue, 60 percent blamed unacceptable living costs, and 54 percent of people polled said they would not vote for Assad in elections scheduled for 2021.
The sudden emergence of such a stream of accurate and honest public writing on Syria from Russia was in and of itself a surprise, but so too was the abrupt deletion of many of the pieces just days later. This was not the work of hackers as some subsequently claimed, but was it a coordinated campaign aimed at sending a pointed message from the Kremlin into the heart of Damascus? Or was this simply reflective of Russia finally waking up to the creeping quagmire it has gotten itself into?
The reality probably lies somewhere between those two scenarios. After all, the Kremlin has pursued other paths to humiliate Assad before, like during Putin’s visit to Hemeimeem Airbase in December 2017 when Assad was physically held back and prevented from walking alongside the Russian president and in trips to Moscow when Syrian flags were palpably missing from joint photo appearances between Assad and Putin. Since Russia’s military intervention in September 2015 — something that undoubtedly saved the regime from implosion — the Assad regime has remained a troublesome and uncooperative partner for Moscow, which takes and takes and gives little, if anything, back. Notwithstanding its status as the 21st century’s most infamous war criminal regime, nobody could blame Russia for being frustrated at its Syrian partner’s refusal to play along and for coming to terms with the mess it now owns in Syria.
