Diminishing returns
The decline of Russia’s soft power in Syria

In January 2023 the St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church in the town of Irbin, in eastern Ghouta, was inaugurated to great fanfare, with Russian officials at the ceremony keen on asserting cultural and religious ties with Syria. Irbin was reduced to rubble by the Russian airforce five years before and remains largely in ruins with most of its inhabitants IDPs. The Orthodox church, however, was given special attention by Moscow, which funded its full restoration. Russia’s military intervention from late-2015 has been accompanied by a major expansion of its soft power influence: Russian language schools have been established  in Damascus, and Russian companies have won energy, IT, and resource extraction contracts. This soft power, however, is only an annex to Russia’s far more formidable hard power; and with major fighting having subsided, and the Ukraine war dragging on, it is not increasing and may even be declining. This is bad news for President Putin, whose Mediterranean strategy rests on a long, comfortable, and low-cost stay in Syria.    

Rise and check of Russian soft power
In the initial, 2011-15, phase of the Syrian conflict, Russia’s soft power influence was limited to the provision of finance and hardware to Damascus. Internationally, Moscow provided diplomatic cover through its use of its veto in the UN Security Council. Building on its Soviet-era relations, Moscow nurtured some cultural activities in Syria, especially involving religious institutions and charities. This was illustrated in November 2011, when Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill emphasised the importance of mixed marriages between Russians and Syrians during a meeting with Bashar Assad in Damascus. 

The second, 2015-19, phase was characterised by full blown Russian military intervention. As a result, the scope and scale of all Russian activities expanded because managing the intervention required parallel hearts-and-minds activities. Through its close relations with the Russian Orthodox Church and organisations such as the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society and the Ahmad Kadyrov Foundation, Russia drew closer to specific communities in Syria. In February 2016 the Russian Reconciliation Center (RRC) was established, headquartered at the Hmeimim air base in Latakia. Part of the RRC’s mission was to balance Tehran’s growing influence through its IRGC-affiliated companies and charities. To turn military advances into political gains, the RRC negotiated the surrender of besieged communities – often using humanitarian aid as a carrot – and incorporated surrendered rebels and draft dodgers into the Syrian Army’s Russian-created 5th Corps. Crucially, the RRC presented itself as a shield that could protect surrendering rebels and their families from the regime’s revenge, underlining an image of Russia as a firm but fair actor. In this same, second, phase came the adoption of UNSCR 2254, the 2016 Kerry-Lavrov dialogue, the fall of rebel-held eastern Aleppo, the establishment of the four de-escalation zones via the Astana process, the effective smear campaign against the White Helmets, interference in international investigations on the regime’s chemical weapon usage, and the introduction of Russian as a second foreign language taught in Syrian schools. 

In the third phase, 2018-2022, Russian soft power peaked then started a slow decline. Things changed with the recapture of three of the four de-escalation zones (the easy ones) and the switch of Russia’s attention to the northwest (the difficult one). Diplomatically, the UN’s Constitutional Committee process began in late-2019 with much Russian backing. Back then, Russia saw potential for Western reengagement with Assad, or at least a grudging acceptance of his military victory, and used the constitutional process to buy time for slow motion normalisation. However, the West’s Syria fatigue may have been overestimated by Moscow, which failed to translate momentum on the ground into tangible political victories. When the Turkish army crushed regime forces attempting to advance deep into the northwest in early 2020, it became clear that Ankara would not accept the “forced reconciliation” approach. On the international stage, Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine ended the idea that a deal with Moscow was possible, and its soft power investment took a tumble.  

Russian soft power today
Activities of the RRC and affiliated charities have waned in the past year because the reduction of  large scale offensives means there is no need for a  ‘good cop’. Even in the areas recaptured from rebels, Iran has proved more successful in embedding itself in the social fabric of communities and infiltrating the inner echelons of the regime. Much of Russia’s soft power lost its rationale once the violence abated. The Christian communities are naturally less prone to Iranian influence. Today, Russia’s key societal support operations are in areas with Christian Orthodox majorities such as Safita and Mashta al-Helu along the coast, Wadi al-Nasara in rural Homs, and Suqaylabia and Maharda in rural Hama; and in rural Damascus, especially Sednayah, Irbin, and Malloula, where RRC-approved charities such as the Russar foundation are particularly active. 

In the rest of Syria, Russia has sought to consolidate cultural ties. Russian scholarships for Syrians doubled to over 1000 in 2022 and 2023. Under the oversight of the Russian Embassy, the Russian House in Damascus has recently been refurbished and expanded, offering language courses and a variety of cultural and musical events. Local sources report that talk about “opportunities” in Russia is common, with many students pursuing their higher education in Russia with a view to staying there permanently.

Given its limited aid and development budget, Russia clearly prioritises some activities over others. In September 2023, an RRC-sponsored “Peace and Educational Center“ was inaugurated in the southern Damascus countryside, providing social, medical, cultural, and educational services to the families of Syrian army ‘martyrs.’ Similar centers have opened in strategic areas of Latakia and Homs. The size of Russian support is hard to assess as Moscow prefers full control over its limited humanitarian assistance and implements it via secretive state agencies. Russian financial support for the UN, including UNIDO, WFP, UNDP, and FAO, has totalled less than $50 million since 2011. The extent of bilateral support, i.e. via the Russian-Syrian Joint Intergovernmental Committee for Commercial, Economic, Technical, and Scientific Cooperation, is as yet unknown. In Assad’s July 2023 visit to Moscow, 40 investment projects including rehabilitation of airports and modernisation of thermal power plants were announced. These announcements, however, must be treated with caution as Russia has somewhat creative definitions of the term “investment project.” Syria aid fatigue is not a phenomenon exclusive to the West.

A strong Russian presence in the eastern Mediterranean depends on a friendly regime in Damascus whose existential costs for Moscow are not too high. The reality, however, is that Assad’s military will never be strong enough to stand alone, and his government cannot survive financially without generous external support. A state collapse would be ruinous for Russia, and is a very real risk eight years into its ‘decisive’ intervention. 

Looking ahead
Observers have noted  Russia’s lack of involvement – weakness perhaps – in such local conflicts as the tribal uprising in Deir Ezzor and the protest movement in Suwayda. The latter was an embarrassing setback because Russian representatives engaged with the Druze community in an abortive attempt to calm the situation. Indeed, Druze leader Shaikh Hikmat Al-Hajari refused to speak to the Russians at all – perhaps because Moscow didn’t meet its side of the 2018 deal to guarantee a buffer zone that keeps Iranian proxies away from the border with Israel, and drug smugglers away from the border with Jordan. Many such reconciliation deals that Russia helped broker in the south have been reneged upon by the regime – with Russian complicity. 

With the recent crisis in Gaza, Russia’s tiring with its Syria investment and its linked inability to contain Iran in southern Syria may now be exposed for all to see. The Israeli government has declared an intention to create a buffer zone to protect its northern border once the offensive on Gaza is completed. Russia doesn’t want to get drawn into any conflict with Israel; yet its nominal guarantor role in Syria and its mixed relationship — cooperative and competitive — with Iran makes it difficult to avoid the risk. Any gap left unfilled by Russia will be filled by Iran, and an increase in Iranian influence might erode Russia's grip on Assad's regime. The escalating Israeli air attacks on Syria without Russian consent undermine Russia’s claim to be master of Syrian skies. At the same time, however, Iranian-linked militias persistently engaging the US is not the worst scenario for Moscow. 

Russia today finds itself at odds with Israel, preventing it from advancing its interests with Tel Aviv by exploiting emerging tensions between the Israelis and the West over human rights violations against the Palestinians and war crimes in Gaza. The UAE is now reportedly attempting to mediate between Russia and Israel a recommitment to the 2018 southern buffer zone deal, with the aim of  reducing tensions. The UAE mediation offer was also likely a favour to Iran, which wants to avert any Israeli offensive against Iranian proxies, whose value lies more in their potential to strike than in their actual combat operations against the IDF.