As a result, Russian oil companies would minimize any competition from Iran, Iraq, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia. To do this, Russia, working with Syria and Iran, is targeting groups opposed to Assad. In 2015, executive director for the Union of Oil and Gas Producers Gissa Gutchel announced, “When the fighting stops and the situation in Syria is stabilized, Russian companies which had to freeze their operations due to the civil war will be ready to quickly resume their operations and fulfill contracts signed before the war that are valued at minimum at $1.6 billion”. This coincides with a Russian election which Putin is all but certain to win, ensuring that his regime can continue pursuing an increasingly aggressive foreign policy. August 30, 2017. In the years since, this has paid off both internationally and domestically. Maintain a presence in the Middle East. Low oil prices and fast-evaporating cash reserves prevent Russia from pursuing a costly reconstruction. However, Russian energy companies are determined to return. He has no long-term strategic goals beyond creating chaos and weakening the alliances of the free world wherever possible. A naval base and airfields capable of hosting the largest Russian military presence outside of its borders will present a significant challenge to both Western energy companies operating in the region, such as Noble Gas, and to the military support that comes with them. Russia Is the Only Winner in Syria With Washington’s policy in chaos and Erdogan moving into Putin’s orbit, Moscow has come out on top. Russia's Energy Goals in Syria Nikita Sogoloff . https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/russias-energy-goals-syria There are 7 thousand Russians fighting for ISIS, mostly from the Caucasus region, and ISIS territories are only 1000 miles or so from Russian territory. The situation changed after September 2015 when Russia, upon President Assad's request, began a military campaign in Syria against militants from Islamic State, who had taken control of large swathes of the country. The second, and interrelated goal, will be to bolster the Iraqi central government to prevent the Islamic State from re-emerging as a threat and to blunt Iranian efforts to expand its influence in the country. He notes that many experts in Russia are now asking “why the Russian leadership sent a military contingent to Syria. August 30, 2017. news Russia-Turkey Relations Face Pressure Over Syria, but Pattern Is Unlikely to Change Make the job of the USA and NATO more difficult and expensive. The annexation of Crimea, the war in eastern Ukraine, the military deployment in Syria, the tense military standoff with the West in the Baltic and Black Seas, and the interference in U.S. and European domestic politics have all enhanced Russia’s image as a major power with significant power projection capabilities, as well as Putin’s reputation as a bold and skilled leader. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Russia's air campaign in Syria has been under way for a little over a week, and it is now possible to begin to analyse what it is achieving, what weaponry is being used … Ensure that when things are eventually settled, that Russia has a role and influence. In 2013, with the war entering its bloodiest period, Russian company Soyuzneftegaz won an exclusive tender to explore and develop Syria’s offshore gas reserves in Block 12, adding to the company's modest holdings near Syria’s border with Turkey. If Russia’s energy companies accept Syria’s request, they will gain significant control over Syria’s energy sector, as they would demand the bulk of shares in ventures for which they provide manpower and supplies. Furthermore, having control over such projects means Russia will have at least partial access to approximately 50.5 bcms/year of natural gas exports, 5.5 times more than all of Syria’s reserves and approximately 27 percent of Russia’s annual LNG exports. In a February 2020 article, former deputy secretary of defense, Michael Mulroy, said that Russia’s actions in Syria led to substantial benefits for their military posture there including a strategic warm-water naval facility in the eastern Mediterranean, at Tartus, as well as air bases in and around the capital of Damascus. In February of that year, a Syrian delegation travelled to Moscow to meet with the Minister of Energy and the heads of the petroleum industry where they asked Russian oil and gas companies to help restore Syria’s destroyed energy sector. Shortly after the operation began, Russian officials were cited as saying that, apart from fighting terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State, Russia′s goals included helping the Syrian government retake territory from various anti-government groups that are labelled by the United States and the American-led intervention in Syria as ″moderate opposition″, with a broader geopolitical objective being to roll back … Thus, when the time comes, Russian oil and gas companies will capitalize on their country’s commitment to the Assad regime, thus ensuring Russia remains a dominant player in the region for years to come. With the Syrian army on the offensive, the Assad regime began to offer Russian companies unprecedented access to its energy sector. Tartus is used for maintenance and is capable of holding 11 warships at a time, including nuclear submarines. Russia’s aggressive military intervention in late 2015 began to reverse the battlefield momentum of the disparate conglomeration of opposition groups whose presence potentially threatened Assad’s position in Damascus. With the opposition forces relatively subdued and prospects for stability appearing more realistic, Russian energy companies are looking to renew and expand their investments in the Syrian energy sector. Fax: 202-223-5364, Fikra Forum is an initiative of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Uprising or Election: What Kind of Change Do Iraqis Want? Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. So Russia’s goals are quite clear: Contain Islamism. Transgender nullifies sexuality, we have a solution for you! Russian scholars Rawi Abdelal and Alexandra Vacroux unpack the various rationales. The goal they mainly set for themselves was to fight Assad, not ISIS. ( Log Out / Russia’s only naval base outside the former Soviet Union is in Tartus, Syria. With Syria’s invitation in 2016, such an opportunity presented itself. The greatest challenge to Russia realizing such a goal is its own floundering economy. The danger to Russia is obvious: they could have religious fanatics who now are experienced in war and terror moving back to Russia. Joseph Bahout writes: it would be premature to assume that there is a grand design behind Russia’s Syrian intervention. Ensure that when things are eventually settled, that Russia has a role and influence. Such an undertaking also requires a level of political stability yet to be attained. When Russia began its military intervention in Syria, it was motivated more by political incentives than economic ones. Meanwhile, Syrian ceasefires and de-escalation zones, while tenuous, have provided the clearest path to peace since December 2016. NATO’s and America’s strategic goals in the Middle East are a continuation of the goals that they had in general about Russia. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, What We Ignore, We Empower: Five Decades of Despair Under the Assad Regime. Syria is an historical ally. Putin's Russia is also the strongest ally of Syrian President President Bashar al-Assad, who has killed 250,000 people in his country's civil war. Summary: The Kremlin is riding high in the Middle East, where Russia’s military intervention in Syria has changed the course of the country’s civil war. The Institute is a 501(c)3 organization; all donations are tax-deductible. By undertaking such a massive endeavor, Russian energy companies hope to control significant portions of pipelines, liquefaction facilities, refineries, and terminals, thus capitalizing on Syria’s potential as a transit hub for regional oil and gas heading to Europe. Before the war, Russian oil and gas companies faced stiff competition from Iran, which planned on building an Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, from Qatar, which sought to connect its gas fields to Turkey by pipeline through Syria, and from Egypt, which hoped to expand the “Arab Gas Pipeline” from Jordan to Turkey. Furthermore, investing in Syrian energy infrastructure can help secure Russia’s oil and gas interests in neighboring Iraq. Russia saw in Syria an opportunity to act decisively, and took it. If Syria falls to ISIS, this is much more a problem for Russia than America and NATO. Rather, they seek to actively participate in rebuilding and operating Syrian oil and gas infrastructure. But their aim is not to explore and extract Syria’s modest petroleum reserves—Russia has plenty. Syrian oil reserves are at 2.5 billion barrels, only .2 percent of the global share, while its 8.95 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas are insufficient to meet even domestic demands. First, Assad is a long-term friend of Moscow’s. Nikita Sogoloff was an intern with the Arab Politics program with a focus on Russia at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Since then, Moscow has become friends with all sides in Syria – except with the Americans. How Biden Can Overcome Iran’s Maximum Pressure. Their secondary goal has been to ensure that Syria’s Kurds do not establish a territorially contiguous area adjacent to the Turkish border. If it is resumed, Russia could have a near-monopoly over its interests in the region, as Russian companies could send their oil and gas through Russian-built pipelines to be shipped from a port defended by the Russian navy. What it can do now are sporadic terrorist acts in the territory of Russia. ( Log Out / Russia could choose the place and date of the first open engagement. The views expressed by Fikra Forum contributors are the personal views of the individual authors, and are not necessarily endorsed by the Institute, its staff, Board of Directors, or Board of Advisors., منتدى فكرة هو مبادرة لمعهد واشنطن لسياسة الشرق الأدنى. Both companies have since suspended their operations, blaming security concerns for their decision. To contain it, to expand into its former sphere of influence, and ultimately to control economic resources. Caliphate at the current stage of its development constitutes no direct military threat to Russia. A1: Russia’s primary goal in Syria is to support the Assad government and help it to stay in power. 1111 19th Street NW - Suite 500 Not only would Russia circumvent Eastern European countries, thus avoiding transit fees, but the EU would also be unable to purchase gas from any exporter, including those in the Middle East, without direct or indirect dealings with Russia. While in July, the Duma ratified a bill establishing a new Russian air base in Syria. Maintain a presence in the Middle East. Russia could end up at a crossroads between its actual and declared goals in Syria. Doing so will bring Russia closer to realizing some of its long-term geopolitical goals. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. A short-term goal is reducing or eliminating economic sanctions imposed on the Russian state, major Russian financial companies and high-ranking Rus… In January 2017, Russia and Syria agreed on a forty-nine-year deal allowing Russia to maintain its navy at the Port of Tartus, which it plans on expanding to house eleven warships as well as nuclear submarines. In doing so, Russia will not only expand its dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean, a dream since the Caucasian Wars of the nineteenth century, but also solidify its stranglehold on the European gas supply. The project was shelved in 2011 due to growing instability in the region, but there has been little indication that it was fully abandoned. By Reese Erlich | October 30, 2019, 9:15 AM. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Tel: 202-452-0650 Analysis by the World Bank predicts that by 2019, Russia’s economy would be in full recovery from its years-long recession while commodities traders, encouraged by anticipated OPEC austerity measures against over-producers, are cautiously optimistic about a rise in oil prices.