14 A Strategy of Limited Actions: Russia’s Ground-based Forces in Syria

Russia’s intervention in Syria (2015-) has marked a new direction in Russian military power projection abroad. It is Russia’s first military operation outside of the former USSR since the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989), its first military campaign spearheaded by the aerospace forces and its first-ever expeditionary war. It is also Moscow’s first long-range deployment of military forces since Nikita Khrushchev’s dispatchment of Soviet troops to Cuba in Operation Anadyr in 1962.

Russia’s military brass have stressed the importance of the Syrian intervention as a pivot in Russia’s use of military force abroad. Russia’s chief of the General Staff, Army General Valeriy Gerasimov said in 2019 that the intervention fits within ‘a strategy of limited actions’, developed to enable Russian forces to carry out ‘tasks to defend and advance national interests outside the borders of Russian territory’.¹ Gerasimov noted that the strategy involves ‘the creation of a self-sufficient grouping of forces based on force elements of one of the branches of the Russian Armed Forces possessing high mobility and the capability to make the greatest contribution to executing assigned missions’, and that it relies on ‘securing and retaining information superiority, advanced command-and-control and all-round support, and covert deployment of the necessary grouping’.² As observers have pointed out, this applies to a greater or lesser extent to the Syrian campaign, where Russia’s aerospace forces have been assigned the lead role and where Russian military deployment has been marked by mobility and flexible decision-making.³

Russia’s intervention in Syria has been described as an aerial or a non-contact operation. This is accurate to a degree, for the intervention has relied on the Russian aerospace forces, novel 4CISR technology and precision-guided missiles to minimize direct contact between Russian forces and the Syrian armed opposition. Yet the Syrian intervention is no Russian repeat of NATO’s Operation Allied Force in Kosovo 1999, with which it is sometimes compared.⁴ Rather, the operation has involved an important but overlooked ground-based contingent comprised of artillery troops, naval infantry, special operations forces (spetsnaz), military police, military advisors, and others. It is this land warfare component that sits at the centre of the present chapter and will be considered in terms of its role in the intervention. What part has this ground-based contingent played within overall Russian force employment in Syria? This is the question that will be addressed.

The chapter is divided into four parts. First it surveys other research about the Russian ground-based contingent, research that is illuminating though limited. Then it provides an overview of Russia’s ground-based contingent in Syria. Third, it discusses six key strategic functions of the ground-based forces in Russia’s overall force employment in Syria. Finally, it summarizes the findings, whilst reflecting on their implications for the development of Russian land warfare. The chapter covers the period between the start of Russia’s military intervention in Syria in 2015 and 2021 and therefore does not address the changes wrought to the Russian military contingent in Syria after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In examining the Russian ground-based contingent in Syria, the chapter draws on Russian- and English-language sources, including newspaper articles, think tank reports, and academic publications. Much of the material is, directly or indirectly, based on Russian or Syrian primary sources. This is important to note, for as Russia expert Timothy Thomas has pointed out, independent first-hand reports on Russian military actions are limited,⁵ making much of the common understanding of Russian warfare in Syria contingent on information divulged by Russian and Syrian sources. Undoubtedly, scholarly research of Russia’s intervention will continue to evolve as more information comes to light.

Attentive readers will have noticed that the chapter uses the phrase ‘ground-based forces’, not ground forces. This follows on Russia researchers' Charles Bartles and Lester Grau’s employment of that phrase in their study of the Russian ground-based contingent.⁶ It captures the situation in which Russia’s ground-based force constellation in Syria comprises also units not part of Russia’s regular ground forces. The naval infantry, for example, belongs to the Russian navy, whilst private military companies (PMCs) that have been employed in Syria are nominally independent but often practically aligned with Russia’s regular forces. Indeed, the PMCs are no stand-alone appendix to regular forces but operationally and strategically integrated with them. The widened vocabulary used in the chapter reflects a widened understanding of the ground military assets that Russia has used to project power in Syria.

Western and Russian military thinkers have tended to foreground the actions of Russia’s aerospace forces and play down the role of its ground-based forces. Russian airstrikes, supplemented by standoff weapons, have represented the most visible and powerful use of Russian kinetic power in Syria, whilst the initial thrust of the Russian operation was toward the use of aerial power, with the operation morphing into a more heavily ground-based one only later. Furthermore, early Russian public messaging signalled that there was no Russian ground war in Syria and that Russian special operations forces who were present on the ground were engaged not in warfare but in anti-terrorist operations.⁷ Russian military and security scholar Anatoliy Tsyganok, writing in the first quarter of 2016, described the intervention as a joint operation between Russia’s Aerospace Forces and Navy, with ground-based forces providing base security.⁸ Others, too, have focused on the role of Russian aerial power and long-range weaponry, neglecting the role played by Russian military advisers, spetsnaz, and artillery units.⁹

With time, Russian researchers have begun to acknowledge that the Russian ground-based assets in Syria have been engaged in aerial support alongside base security. As Dima Adamsky has pointed out, Russian scholars have described Syria as the first case where Russia has put into practice evolving operational and tactical ideas about reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance-fire complexes. These concepts, which refer to systems of linking remote weaponry to real-time target intelligence, emerged out of Soviet military theoretician and chief of the general staff Nikolay Ogarkov’s understanding that modern warfare will be based on the integration of ISR, C2, and fire systems, allowing the rapid identification and destruction of enemies from range.¹⁰ Russia in Syria has relied on advance C2ISR systems, including the satellite-based Glonass navigation system, to identify targets and coordinate aerial and standoff military action. Yet the limitations of these technologies and the weak fighting strength of pro-Assad ground forces have required the use also of human intelligence and reconnaissance. This has been provided specifically by spetsnaz troops who have supplied forward reconnaissance, guided airstrikes, and assessed airstrike impact, whilst Russian military advisors embedded with Syrian units have also played an important role.¹¹

Indeed, the role of Russian ground-based assets has gone beyond providing base security and supporting reconnaissance-fire and reconnaissance-strike complexes. Russia’s military police units, military advisors and private military contractors have served other functions as well. As Bartles and Grau have argued, two major ways through which Russia’s ground-based contingent has shaped the outcome of the Syrian conflict have been through (1) its deployment of a system of military advisors, who have helped to plan and coordinate tactical and operational action, and (2) its use of fire and artillery support, which has helped to give the pro-regime forces a technological edge over their adversaries.¹² Michael Kofman and Matthew Rojansky have further noted that Russian ground-based forces have fulfilled a variety of functions. For example, special operations forces have conducted diversionary operations, reconnaissance, and targeted killings, whilst demining units have cleared seized territories, with private military contractors spearheading some high-risk engagements.¹³ As Kofman and Rojansky put it, ‘Syria continued to reveal the general Russian preference to use local forces first, mercenaries and other Russian proxies second, and its own forces last, only for decisive effect on the battlefield’.¹⁴

The following section gives an overview of the Russian ground-based contingent in Syria, detailing the structure and functions of various ground-based assets. It largely uses Bartles and Grau’s categorization of the contingent as set out in their report The Russian Ground-Based Contingent in Syria, although it considers artillery as a separate force category and examines naval infantry units in isolation, rather than as a component of the broader category of coastal defence troops. In the subsequent section, the examination of individual force types will lead into a broader discussion of the operational and strategic functions of the ground-based contingent in Syria.

The Russian ground-based contingent in Syria counts a maximum of around 3,000 regular troops,¹⁵ with an additional cohort of approximately 2,000 PMC fighters deployed to Syria at times.¹⁶ (The latter number, however, appears to have dwindled after the Russian Wagner Group fatally clashed with US forces in February 2018 as will be discussed below.)¹⁷ This means that the size of the Russian ground-based contingent in Syria has been only a fraction of those of previous Russian and Soviet deployments, including those in Georgia in 2008 (where an estimated 35–40,000 troops may have taken part¹⁸) and Afghanistan between 1979–1989 (80,000–120,000 troops). The small size of the Russian force is central to understanding its mode of deployment. Kofman and Rojansky explain it as a result of both strategic necessity and strategic restraint. They note that Syrian military bases initially lacked the capacity to host a large number of Russian troops, forcing Moscow to adopt ‘a more conservative and ultimately smarter approach to the battle space’.¹⁹ However, even after bases were expanded at an early stage during the intervention,²⁰ the Kremlin resisted a large scaling-up of its force.²¹ A likely rationale for this was to limit the risk of casualties and logistical and financial overstretch.

With that said, the Russian ground-based contingent did expand over time, if to a limited extent. As Russia’s aerospace operations notched up successes during 2015 and 2016 and parts of Syria’s armed opposition surrendered or retreated, the intervention shifted into a lower gear, moving from aerial bombardment and close-air support to what may be described as peace enforcement and stabilization. After the fall of eastern Aleppo in late 2016—a major success for the pro-regime forces—Moscow sent a detachment of Military Police to Syria. This detachment reportedly consisted of troops from the disbanded Chechen-dominated Vostok and Zapad spetsnaz battalions, which had experience of counterinsurgency and urban warfare in the Caucasus.²² Strikingly, the troops were organized into military police battalions only on the eve of their deployment to Syria in December 2016,²³ which limited the degree of dedicated military police training they received. Further deployments of military police took place in subsequent years,²⁴ which helps to explain the overall increase in the Russian contingent in Syria. In October 2015, Russian media outlet RBC, referencing military experts, estimated that the contingent comprised only some 2,000 troops, including personnel from the aerospace forces;²⁵ later estimations have placed the number at around 5,000,²⁶ apparently excluding PMC contractors.

In his 2019 address referenced above, Valeriy Gerasimov spoke of ‘self-sufficient’ groupings of forces in relation to Russia’s strategy of limited actions. But Russia’s contingent in Syria has hardly been self-sufficient. Forces have been dispatched to, and detached from, it over the course of the conflict in accordance with need and circumstance. If units of Military Police were sent to Syria on three-month tours at the end of 2016 and the start of 2017,²⁷ teams of sappers have, too, been deployed on short notice.²⁸ Further, as mentioned previously, PMC contractors were apparently removed from the country following the clash with US forces in February 2018. Stable maritime and air connections with Syria and short troop rotation times—often no more than three to six months—have supported continuing changes in the make-up of the Russian intervention force.

With that said, one may divide the Russian ground-based contingent in Syria into six main categories of troops: naval infantry, artillery, special operations forces (spetsnaz), military police, military advisors, and private military companies. This list is not exhaustive, as there are reports that airborne (VDV) troops have also served in Syria, providing security at Russian military bases, as well as groups of sappers, radio signallers, and radio intelligence troops.²⁹ Nevertheless, it covers the main deployed Russian ground-based force types. This section considers each of these force types in turn.

Highly mobile and highly trained, Russia’s naval infantry are part of the country’s rapid reaction capacity, forming a kind of naval sister force to the more famous airborne forces (VDV). The naval infantry units in Syria are drawn from Russia’s Black Sea and Northern Fleets and were initially deployed at the start of the intervention to provide security at Russia’s air base in Kheimim and naval base in Tartus, and have since remained.³⁰ The naval infantry’s presence in Tartus has helped to ensure the smooth maritime supply of the Russian intervention force but may also be intended to function as a deterrent to a possible coastal incursion by Western forces, according to Charles Bartles and Lester Grau.³¹ With that said, their role in Syria reaches beyond that of base security and coastal defence. As elite units, naval infantry have been used in at least one rescue operation,³² whilst the Russian defence ministry has said that Russian naval infantry carry out a ‘wide spectrum of tasks’ alongside base security in Syria, not specifying what those other tasks are.³³

Russia has supplied large quantities of artillery to the battlefields in Syria, including 152 mm Msta-B and 122 mm D-30 howitzers, the 300 mm Smerch, 120 mm Grad/Tornado-G, and 220 mm Uragan multiple launch rocket systems and the so-called TOS-1A Solntsepyok system.³⁴ This is advanced Russian weaponry that has helped to tilt the balance of firepower between pro- and anti-regime forces in Syra in favour of the former. In addition, Russia has deployed targeting technology, including Israeli-made drones, which has further increased the effectiveness of indirect fire.

Most of the artillery is operated by Syrian regime forces but some of it appears to be handled by Russian artillery units.³⁵ Where Syrian troops have conducted artillery strikes they have often done so under the supervision of Russian specialists or after being trained by the latter in the use of Russian artillery pieces. Russian expertise allows Syrian forces not only to wield more advanced Russian artillery pieces but also to implement new tactics of artillery deployment. One Russian colonel who served as a military advisor in Syria said he and other Russian advisors taught Syrian artillery troops tactical movement, as well as techniques of concealment and deception (maskirovka), in order to evade counter fire.³⁶ Another Russian officer said Syrian troops lacking in professional skills were trained in ‘how to position and target long-range guns, adjust fire, and equip and use shelters at battery positions’.³⁷

Russian special operations forces, or spetsnaz (short for spetsialn’oe naznachenie, special designation), had reportedly been present in Syria, much like Russian private military contractors, even before the official start of the Russian intervention in the autumn of 2015.³⁸ Whilst their activities have understandably been shrouded in secrecy, reports suggest their role has been threefold: providing ground reconnaissance, acting as forward air controllers, and carrying out high-value missions behind enemy lines.³⁹

First, as British war reporter Tim Ripley has observed, Russian spetsnaz provided important ground reconnaissance for the VKS in the early stages of the intervention, compensating for unreliable intelligence from Syrian, Iranian, and other coalition partners.⁴⁰ Second, their small numbers and elite training have made them suitable as forward air controllers, assisting in the identification of targets for aerial attacks and guiding air power toward these. First commander of the Russian contingent in Syria, Colonel General Aleksandr Dvornikov, pointed out that the special operations forces conduct ground reconnaissance and help to lead aerospace forces to the targets.⁴¹ Third, they carry out attacks on the armed opposition, both in concert with and independently of coalition forces, including assassinations and other special operations. One publicized incident occurred on 11 January 2021, when Russian spetsnaz, fighting in tandem with Syrian regime forces in Idlib Province, reportedly killed eleven armed fighters.⁴²

The establishment of a Russian military police force had been foreseen already in 2011 during the reformer Anatoliy Serdyukov’s tenure as Defense Minister, yet, it was only in March 2015, in other words shortly before the start of Russia’s intervention, that President Vladimir Putin confirmed its constitution, enabling it to come into being.⁴³

The Russian military police battalions in Syria have had a far wider remit of tasks than is customary for Western military police forces. In Bartles and Grau’s words, it may be more appropriate to view the role of the Russian battalions as one of ‘expeditionary peacekeepers’, tasked with promoting stability and security in post-violence contexts.⁴⁴ When the first Russian military police detachment was deployed in Aleppo after the fall of its eastern districts to coalition forces in late December 2016, reports suggest that its role was to escort humanitarian convoys, protect Russian and international personnel in the field (including during mine-clearing and humanitarian operations), and provide a more palatable face to the coalition forces to Aleppo’s Sunni population than would Assad’s troops and their Shia auxiliaries have done.⁴⁵ Such a focus on public outreach may explain the very high presence of Muslim Chechen and Ingush troops in the military police battalions.⁴⁶ It mirrors a similarly heavy use of Muslim troops during the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979–1980.⁴⁷ Furthermore, according to Russian press reports, the Russian military police units in Syria may help to deter abuse of Aleppo’s Sunnis by other coalition troops.⁴⁸ According to this interpretation, the forces have been inserted into post-conflict zones partly as a buffer between conquerors and conquered in an attempt to reduce the risk of renewed violence. This may help to explain the fact that the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) in December 2016 requested to hand over control over its section of Aleppo to the Russian military police rather than to Assad’s forces, with whom it had a history of conflict.⁴⁹

Moreover, military police units have been deployed to areas contested by Turkish-backed militias in Aleppo and Idlib Provinces. Again, their presence appears to have been intended to have a calming effect. The town of Saraqib in Idlib Province sits strategically on the M5 motorway that connects Aleppo and Homs, at the location where the M5 merges with the M4 running from the city of Latakia. Syrian regime forces seized Saraqib in February 2020 but were soon beaten back by Turkish-backed militias.⁵⁰ When Syrian forces retook the city, Russian military policemen quickly moved in. This inaugurated a period of relative calm in the area, with the Russian troops apparently acting as a cordon sanitaire, deterring Turkish-sponsored attacks.⁵¹ Russian military police units were credited in the Russian press with a similar stabilizing effect after they took over the manning of guard posts from Syrian government forces in the Ayn-Isa district near Raqqa. The government forces had drawn repeated fire from Turkish and Turkish-backed units, but after the arrival of the Russian units, the situation was reported to become more stable.

Importantly, Russia’s military police battalions in Syria consist largely of spetsnaz troops, who, as mentioned, in several cases were transferred to their military police units shortly before their deployment to the Middle East. At least one of the battalions was given additional training at the new centre for the training of spetsnaz forces in Gudermes by veterans of the elite Alfa and Vympel spetsnaz units.⁵² It is likely that the spetsnaz troops were selected for the rigour of their training and their experience of counterinsurgency operations in the Caucasus, granting them a certain stature and authority. Presumably, they were also better prepared for the demands and dangers of operating in war-torn Syria.

In an interview in the Russian government newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta on 23 March 2016, Lieutenant-General Aleksandr Dvornikov, who was the first commander of the Russian forces in Syria, said Russia had established a system of military advisors at ‘all levels’ of the Syrian Armed Forces, including at the tactical level. Dvornikov said the advisors trained Syrian troops, ‘helped Kurdish and other patriotic formations’, and took ‘the very most active part [samoe aktivnoe uchastie] in the preparation of military actions’.⁵³ Other reports paint a similar picture of pervasive Russian military advisory presence in allied ground units in Syria.⁵⁴ Among other things, advisers have worked to introduce Russian military know-how into pro-regime forces, including through training, support, mentoring and the directing of military actions. They have also, as previously mentioned, trained Syrian officers and soldiers in the use of Russian military equipment, including artillery,⁵⁵ and participated in military actions on the frontlines, where Russian media has credited them with coordinating Syrian tactical actions. Numerous advisors have been killed or wounded in armed engagements.⁵⁶

Russian military officials have argued that the military advisors have been key to the success of the military intervention. In his aforementioned interview, Dvornikov said Russian advisors permitted ‘the destruction of the infrastructure of the supply channels of the terrorists, to seize the initiative and to go on the offensive’,⁵⁷ whilst chief of the General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov in a 2017 address to the Academy of Military Sciences said that ‘under the leadership of Russian military advisors and with the incessant support of the airplanes of Russia’s Aerospace Forces, large armed formations were destroyed in the provinces of Latakia, Aleppo and Damascus. Control was established over Palmyra.’⁵⁸ To be sure there is an element of political communication in this, since the lauding of military advisors and the aerospace forces signals that it was Russian military know-how and superior military technology that turned the tide of the civil war rather than the fighting prowess of Syrian ground forces, Iranian auxiliaries, and Russian private military contractors. But even so, the system of military advisors appears to have provided an edge to the pro-regime forces. Dima Adamsky suggests that the advisors gave Russia a means to coordinate the activities of the motley of pro-regime forces at multiple levels, including in frontline tactical units. In doing so, they drew on a new command and control system that had been developed within the Russian Armed Forces and tested in military exercises in previous years. Adamsky deems that advisors were a crucial component of the Russian command and control architecture as embodied by the Command Post of the Grouping of Forces, located at the Kheimim airbase. The Command Post functioned to coordinate the ‘activities of the Russian Forces with the Syrian Army, Republican Guard, and local and foreign militias’.⁵⁹ Subordinated to the Command Post were Operational Groups of Advisers, which were embedded with tactical units and enabled the coordination of military action at the tactical level.⁶⁰

A number of Russian PMCs have operated in Syria during the civil war. One was the Slavonic Corps which deployed to Syria in 2013, long before the Russian intervention in September 2015. Consisting of ex-soldiers, among others, it was tasked with securing oil resources near the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor, but the venture failed and the Corps was soon disbanded, with a number of its members being arrested when they returned to Russia on charges of involvement in mercenary activity.

After the start of the Russian intervention, reports surfaced that another group of Russian military contractors had been deployed to Syria. This was the Wagner Group, which had previously deployed to eastern Ukraine where it had supported pro-Russian separatists in their war with Ukrainian government forces. Now it was operating in Syria from what appeared to be highly exposed positions. In December 2015, nine Russian military contractors were reportedly killed in a mortar attack on their base.⁶¹

The Wagner Group is a nominally independent entity, albeit one with highly murky funding and ownership lines, yet has well documented ties with the Russian military establishment.⁶² As Russian investigative journalists have reported, Wagner fighters have been trained in facilities attached to the training grounds of Russia’s 10th GRU Spetsnaz brigade in Molkino in southern Russia.⁶³ Some of its fighters have been flown to Russia onboard Russian military airplanes after being wounded⁶⁴ and they are kitted with Russian military gear.⁶⁵ Their apparent commander, Dmitry Utkin, is a GRU spetsnaz veteran, and other Wagner fighters whose names and backgrounds have come to light are also veterans of Russia’s elite spetsnaz formations or other units in the Russian military. Timothy Thomas has queried whether Wagner should be considered a private military company at all, since it, in contrast to other private military companies, is involved not only in military support and training, but in direct combat operations. Perhaps a better term, he suggests, is ‘illegal armed formation’.

The Wagner Group in Syria certainly seems to be operating as an extension of the Russian military in the form of a semi-covert entity that grants Russian officials a degree of plausible deniability. To be sure, that plausible deniability, as Kimberly Marten has pointed out, has waned over time as the relationship between Wagner and Russian officialdom has been increasingly difficult to hide, yet it seems to have played an important role periodically during the Russian intervention in Syria. Whilst the details of their activities remain shrouded in some secrecy, it seems that Wagner fighters are tasked with more dangerous missions in what may be termed a case of risk outsourcing. Judging by media reports and research publications, Wagner has been used in risky forward ground operations and has been deployed in areas that have been more exposed to enemy action. One Russian investigative journalists, Iliya Rozhdestvenskiy, reported that Wagner operatives claimed that they played a leading role in the second battle for Palmyra in 2016, although Syrian forces were given most of the credit for the success in retaking the city.⁶⁶ Whilst it is not possible to verify such claims, casualties have indeed been far higher among Wagner contractors than among regular Russian forces, which lends credence to the suggestion that the PMC has been used as a surrogate for regular units in high-risk missions. Many of Wagner’s casualties were incurred when the force, acting together with Syrian pro-regime forces, attacked a Kurdish-led opposition position near Deir ez-Zour in February 2018 where around thirty American troops were embedded.⁶⁷ This brought down massive US air attacks on their forces, killing an estimated 200–300 members of the attacking force.⁶⁸ Even if this incident is discounted, casualties appear to have been higher in the Wagner Group than in regular units.

The clash outside Deir ez-Zour suggests that the plausible deniability offered by the Wagner Group may have come at the price of reduced control for Russian authorities. There are different versions of the event, but it seems that the attack on the Kurdish position was initiated independently by Wagner, without endorsement from the regular chain of command. Indeed, as American bombs rained down on the contractors, Russian officers washed their hands, refraining from assisting the contractors and denying responsibility for them to their US counterparts. The event appears to have embarrassed the Russian government, and, as Martens suggests, may be one reason why Wagner’s presence in Syria dwindled after it.⁶⁹

Russia’s range of assets employed in Syria and the small scale of its overall presence in the country reflect its strategizing. In Syria, Russia has sought to square bold ambitions with a limited appetite for risk. Its apparent ambitions include expanding its influence in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean, neutralizing post-Soviet Jihadis, forcing the West to recognize Russia as a major stakeholder in the resolution of the Syrian Civil War and opening up a new front in its ongoing conflict with the West. These apparent objectives have been matched with only limited military deployment. In terms of boots on the ground, Russia has reportedly deployed only around 3,000 regular troops and 2,000 military contractors at any given time.

The decision to conduct a military intervention on a shoestring has several probable reasons. One is casualty aversion, as the Russian public—although initially favourable to the intervention—is understood to have little stomach for a large number of regular Russian casualties. Another is a fear of quagmire, with Russia mindful of the problems likely to arise if its ground forces are allowed to displace those of the Syrian regime and its Iranian and other backers. That situation would recall what presented during the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989) when Soviet ground forces displaced and further demoralized Afghan Army units and came to draw much of the Mujahidin fire. A third likely reason is escalation management, as Russia is keen to keep its footprint relatively slight in a civil war where numerous regional and world powers have important stakes in order to reduce the risk of escalatory incidents and deliberate escalatory reactions.

Aware of the West’s disappetite for expanding its engagement in Syria, Russia has bet on its ability to achieve great impact with limited means, partly because it has at its disposal advanced 4CISR technology and highly trained military personnel. If the Soviet 40th Army that went into Afghanistan consisted largely of blue-collar soldiers, and the Red Army that confronted the Second World War–Nazi Wehrmacht comprised largely peasant soldiers, Russia’s small contingent in Syria is highly professionalized and trained. By various accounts, it appears to be agile, capable of implementing what Russian military thinkers have termed ‘non-standard’ methods, and reacting to and learning from emerging situations.⁷⁰

This small, highly trained, professional, and technologically well-supported contingent seems to serve six key functions in overall Russian force employment in Syria.

Russian reconnaissance teams, specifically spetsnaz, have supplied ground intelligence, guided Russian airpower and assessed the impact of bombardment in support of Russian aerial operations. Limitations in aerial reconnaissance and in the reliability of intelligence supplied by other pro-regime forces appear to have made the participation of Russian ground troops necessary. Thereby, Russian aerial action in Syria has been predicated on the presence of ground personnel, notwithstanding official Russian attempts initially to downplay the role of ground-based special forces in the conflict.

Naval infantry battalion tactical groups, bolstered by paratroopers and reportedly spetsnaz-turned-military police, have helped to fortify Russia’s military bases in Tartus and Kheimim. The security has not been watertight, as opposition forces have carried out numerous drone attacks against the bases, claiming a number of casualties.⁷¹ But the ground-based naval forces have been essential for ensuring the relatively smooth functioning of the two bases as well access to them by Russian supply lines. The naval infantry, parts of which were deployed to the Crimea in the 2014 Russian takeover of the Ukrainian peninsula, has again shown its importance as a key component of Russia’s rapid reaction capabilities in Syria, enabling Russia to gain and secure footholds in the country.

Both naval infantry and other elite Russian troops have been used for high-value and high-risk tasks. Spetsnaz forces are reported to have carried out targeted killings and other actions behind enemy lines, and at least one naval infantryman participated in an operation to rescue a Russian pilot downed by a Turkish F-16 (in which he was killed). In addition, Wagner contractors appear to have been used as the sharp end of the stick in ground attacks. The presence of Russian elite forces—many of them either spetsnaz or former spetsnaz—has equipped the Russian contingent with a means to undertake high-impact missions. Both the Wagner Group and Russian Military Police units appear to have comprised large numbers of former spetsnaz soldiers, indicating the premium that Russian military planners have placed on this military background and training.

Russia’s airpower, material strength, and diplomatic clout have given it an obvious leadership role among the pro-Assad forces in Syria, which comprise Syrian army units, Iranian proxies, Hezbollah troops, and local militias. When Russian forces first intervened in Syria, they were reportedly surprised by the weak combat capability of the pro-regime forces, and Russian military commentators have stressed the difficulties that have emerged over working with them. However, over time Russia appears to have reaped some successes in doing so, which is often credited to its system of military advisors and C4ISR technology which have supported operational and tactical coordination across multiple units. Arguably, too, the deployment of military police battalions has given Russia a means to impose authority over pro-regime forces in post-violence contexts such as Aleppo, promoting discipline among patrolling troops.

Russian military advisors have sought to build the capacity of allied forces, both through formal training and mentoring and through assistance during operations. Some of this has been tactical training—as in the case of artillery troops trained in mobility and deception. Other activity has focused on weapons and equipment handling, with Russian advisors instructing Syrians in the use of Russian-supplied materiel. In addition, Russian officers have helped to reform the Syrian armed forces and supported some of its most combat-capable units such as the so-called Tiger Forces, the 25th Special Missions Forces, commanded by brigadier-general Suheil Salman al-Hassan. It should be borne in mind that the state of the Syrian armed forces upon the Russian entry into the war appears to have been very poor, having been decimated by mass desertions and plummeting morale. Whilst official sources have certainly overstated the effectiveness of Russian capacity building, significant gains seem to have been made, as illustrated by the success of the retaking of Aleppo in autumn 2016.

Russian ground assets in Syria may be understood as operating on a spectrum from covert to overt and deniable to official action. If the Wagner Group and spetsnaz can be located at one end of this spectrum, the military police forces find themselves at the other end as the most public face of the current incarnation of the Russian contingent in Syria. Among other things, the military police have been used in public relations efforts, including the distribution of humanitarian aid, escorting foreign visitors, and conducting patrols in highly mediatized events.

The use of forces with varying degrees of deniability has allowed Russia to deny official involvement in some politically sensitive military actions whilst demonstrating official commitment to other elements of its operation. This has meant that it has been able to engage and interact with adversaries and other stakeholders from a range of political positions. Austin Carson views covertness as an important tool of escalation management in military interventions, as it has the potential to blunt foreign adversaries’ reactions by maintaining a fiction of official non-involvement into which the others can choose to buy.⁷² Certainly the February 2018 event involving the Wagner Group contractors demonstrates the ability to help keep a case of mass bloodshed from escalating into a major diplomatic incident through official denial, even though the Wagner fighters until that point had been evidently supported by the Russian military establishment.

Overt military action, meanwhile, can be used to demonstrate resolve,⁷³ upping the stakes of armed intervention. This may have a restraining effect as it appears to have had with the deployment of military police in areas contested by Turkey and Turkish-backed militias, credited with reducing local hostilities. Russia, having undertaken high-visibility actions during the intervention—including a flight around the British Isles, aerial bombardments, and the launching of Kalibr cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea⁷⁴—has been mindful of the manner in which the optics of its intervention demonstrates resolve to foreign adversaries who have themselves vacillated in their intent to use force in Syria.

In other words, Russia uses overt and (semi-)covert action in part arguably to control escalatory dynamics vis-à-vis local adversaries and foreign stakeholders in Syria. Its constellation of ground-based forces, which have acted with different degrees of covertness and overtness, have offered a tool for navigating the local and international political dynamics of a civil war in which a mesh of local armed actors and foreign backers are engaged.

Russia’s force employment in Syria represents an historical anomaly in Russian warfare. The Ground Forces, the historic centrepiece of Russia’s Armed Forces, have played a secondary role to the aerospace forces in the Syrian campaign. Instead, Russian military action in the Middle Eastern country has been based largely on long-range and close-air support along with other indirect military assistance to Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist regime. This has allowed Russia to minimize immediate contact between its regular forces and the Syrian armed opposition, keeping regular losses low whilst exploiting opportunities to test novel C4ISR technology and non-contact weaponry. Indeed, to a significant extent, Russia’s Syrian intervention has involved a decoupling of Russian troops from Syrian battlefields as well as a division of labour between Russian forces and Syrian regime and other auxiliaries. If the former have provided support, the latter have done the bulk of the close-quarter fighting.

With that said, the Russian ground-based contingent has been crucial to Russian force employment in Syria. Beyond aerial support and base security, Russia has relied on ground-based troops to conduct high-value missions, coordinate a panoply of allied forces, build the capacity of these forces, and promote post-violence de-escalation and consolidation. Russian private military contractors have reportedly offered an important asset in ground operations, taking the bulk of Russian casualties off official registers.

Russia’s ground-based deployment in Syria has been limited in scope but high in impact. It has facilitated—and multiplied the impact of—air strikes and artillery and supported Russia’s management of relations with friend and foe. Much as in eastern Ukraine and to some extent in Georgia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan, Moscow has collaborated with local forces. The ground-based contingent has been a key enabler in this, allowing Russia to force project through local assets brought under Russian—however limited and imperfect—leadership. In Syria, Russia has deployed mainly elite units—including the naval infantry and special operations forces—as well as former elite troops dispatched as part of the military police and the Wagner Group. Highly trained and tactically agile, many of these forces have seemed well suited to the Syrian context.

The Russian ground-based deployment has not been free of problems. One problem has been the unexpectedly low quality of Syrian and other local forces, and the need to rely on a host of auxiliary forces in addition to the Syrian armed forces. Another has been mission creep, which has led Russia to concede a larger ground presence in the form of military police battalions, deployed apparently to secure and stabilize areas retaken by pro-regime troops. High casualties among private military contractors, further, reveals that low official death tolls has hinged partly on the possibility to outsource risk to private entrepreneurs. But even so, the Russian contingent in Syria has demonstrated its ability to achieve considerable impact with a limited force projection, relying on limited ground-forces, effective collaboration with local and regional assets and a Western disappetite for conflict expansion to turn the tide of the civil war in favour of the Syrian regime.