Russia’s hand in the Middle East has been dramatically weakened by the departure of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey’s has been strengthened. Several levers that Russia held over Turkey are gone and the Kremlin is scrambling to limit the damage.

Russia in the past week reportedly asked for Turkey’s assistance in withdrawing troops from Syria. Such a request marks a significant geopolitical shift in the balance of power between Moscow and Ankara. As Russian forces pull back to Latakia province on the coast and personnel are airlifted home, Turkey finds itself holding a stronger hand in the region’s complex power dynamics.

The fate of Russia’s key military outposts in Syria – Tartus naval port and Khmeimim airbase – remains uncertain. The bases are also key to Russia’s operations in the wider region and Africa. As bne IntelliNews reported, key personnel and heavy equipment have been flown out but Russia remains in control of the bases and the new Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) backed government has reportedly given the Kremlin security guarantees for now.

Russian media have already dropped the official HTS designation of “terrorist”. Outlets are now reporting on the more palatable “armed Syrian opposition,” as the Kremlin’s recalibration gets under way.

Without a deal, Russia may have to abandon the bases and lose its toehold in the Mediterranean. Ankara now has less reason to fear the sea will turn into a “Russian lake” – a phrase Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself used in 2016 at a Nato meeting. Weakened Russia naval power will significantly bolster the power of Turkey, which has long controlled access to the Black Sea, via the Bosphorus Strait, and thus the Crimean home ports of Russia’s fleet.

“This is a sharp turnaround from the previous state of affairs,” says Dimitar Bechev, a political analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in a paper. “When Russia intervened in Syria together with Iran and Hezbollah, they thwarted Türkiye’s ambitions to orchestrate regime change in Damascus.”

Russia and Turkey have always been allied rivals in the region, employing a pragmatic but often techy cooperation.

Tensions flared into the open in November 2015 when Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 jet. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the incident a “stab in the back” and promptly slapped economic sanctions on Turkey, one of Russia’s major trading partners. Erdogan eventually apologised in June 2016 and normal relations resumed, but the incident served to highlight the realpolitik basis of the relations between Ankara and Moscow.

Putin has also built up Russian military influence in Armenia and Crimea, which he called an “unsinkable Russian aircraft carrier on Turkey’s doorstep”. Yet, Bechev notes that both countries have “learned to coexist on the ground and even do each other favours.”

Erdogan also needs Putin’s help in his relations with Washington, which has allied with the Syrian Kurd People's Protection Units (YPG) in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. The YPG is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey lists as a proscribed insurgent terrorist group. The YPG/US tandem controls Syria’s oil fields and the Kurd militia shows no sign of withdrawing from their bases in northeastern Syria.

“For that reason, Erdoğan reconciled himself with Assad’s survival in power, along with Russia’s entrenchment south of Türkiye’s border. In return, Türkiye obtained a buffer zone in Syria and a seat – alongside the Russians and Iranians – in the Astana process aimed at resolving the conflict in Syria,” says Bechev. “Overall, however, the equilibrium between Moscow and Ankara proved stable.”

Russia’s weakening position

Everything changed after Assad fled to Moscow on December 8. 

“Now that Russia has largely lost Syria, a large chunk of its leverage over Türkiye is gone too. Ankara’s interlocutor is no longer Assad but HTS, with which it has a history of cooperation,” says Bechev. “Instead of Putin, Erdogan must talk to Donald Trump – because of the US sponsorship of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that [militarily led by the YPG] controls much of northeastern Syria – as well as to the Gulf countries and possibly the EU, which will be supporting the country’s reconstruction.”

Contributing to Assad’s sudden fall was the Russian miscalculation that it could withdraw much of its elite forces and heavy equipment from Syria to bolster its military campaign in Ukraine. At the same time, Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters were withdrawn to reinforce the fight against the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. Together, these withdrawals fatally weakened Assad’s control over Syria, allowing HTS to strike.

Ukrainian military successes and home-made Neptune anti-ship missiles have pushed the Black Sea Fleet out of its Crimean bases to Novorossiysk on the Russian Black Sea coast – a remarkable achievement for Ukraine, a country that doesn’t have a navy of its own. The retreat has eroded Russia’s dominance in the region. Turkish fears of a “Russian lake” have faded and may disappear altogether if HTS denies Russia’s request to remain at its Tartus naval base, where it has been since 1971.

In another unforeseen development, Azerbaijan’s assault on Nagorno-Karabakh last September has seen Moscow’s influence in the South Caucasus unravel as well. Long the security guarantor of the region, under Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) agreements, Moscow walked away from its obligations after Baku’s invasion, ignoring Armenia's pleas for help.

Azerbaijan’s victory in the Karabakh war has strained Russian relations with Yerevan, historically no friend of Turkey’s. Armenia is now pursuing rapprochement with both Ankara and the EU. Armenia’s suspension of its participation in the Russian-led CSTO signals a further breakdown of Moscow’s regional alliances and a dilution of its power in the Caucasus.

“Türkiye appears to be making gains in the South Caucasus – at Russia’s expense,” says Bechev, pointing to the ongoing efforts to normalise Turkey-Armenia relations parallel to Azerbaijan-Armenia peace talks.

Finally, Russia has also lost one of its most powerful levers over Turkey: energy. Devoid of energy resources of its own, Ankara has long been reliant on Russian gas imports. Turkey is now leveraging its position as one of Russia’s only remaining gas transit routes into Europe. With Gazprom’s pipeline contract with Ukraine expiring on January 1, the TurkStream pipeline will become Russia’s sole export pipeline route to Europe.

“Türkiye will use its role as a conduit to extract better terms from the Russian side, including the ability to buy extra volumes of Russian gas to reexport (and mark up) as its own,” Bechev argues, noting that Ankara may even improve its hand if the mooted gas hub in Turkey is established. Erdogan said earlier this year that the hub could be responsible for 100bn cubic metres of gas deliveries to Europe – two thirds of what Russia used to export to Europe pre-war.

The new Black Sea fulcrum

“With Syria out of the picture, Russian-Turkish relations will pivot back to their natural geographic fulcrum: the Black Sea region,” says Bechev. And Erdogan is nothing if he is not pragmatic. “Erdogan’s choice will not be to take a risk and challenge Russia,” Bechev predicts. Instead, Ankara will position itself as a useful mediator, maintaining a delicate balance between Russia and the West.

Prospective peace negotiations on Ukraine widely expected as soon as President-elect Trump takes office on January 20 could offer Erdogan a golden diplomatic opportunity. Turkey hosted the failed Istanbul peace deal in April 2022 and also the Black Sea Grain Initiative that allowed Ukrainian seaborne grain exports to resume temporarily, until the agreement collapsed in July last year. Erdogan remains one of the very few international actors that all sides are prepared to deal with.

Ultimately, however, Erdogan may remind Putin of Assad’s folly: hubris and isolation lead to ruin. As Bechev succinctly puts it, “a political deal is better than an open-ended conflict.”

With Russia weakened across multiple theatres – from Syria to the Black Sea and the Caucasus – Turkey is now in the regional driver’s seat. For Erdogan, the collapse of Russia’s Syrian ambitions represents not only a vindication but an opportunity to reshape the regional order and boost Turkey’s standing at the international top table.

Can Russia make a deal with HTS?

Everything now depends on whether Moscow can make a deal with HTS, a group it has been bombing for the last nine years. Surprisingly, the chances that a deal can be done are pretty good, according to Nikita Smagin, a political analyst with Carnegie. The Kremlin is well versed in reaching accommodations with radicals all over the world and Russia has a lot to offer HTS, starting with wheat and weapons.

For a former jihadist who was affiliated with Al-Qaeda, the HTS leader, Ahmad Hussein al-Sharaa (who has put aside his nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Jolani) has shown himself to be relatively moderate so far. He has given interviews to CNN expounding a message of religious tolerance to Syria’s multiple ethnic and religious groups, ordered a “hands off” as regards the international press and stated that his regime will not enforce the mandatory wearing of hijabs for women.

He has also left Russia in charge of its two key military bases in Syria, providing the Kremlin with temporary security guarantees while talks progress.

“Moscow trades intensively with Türkiye, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, is implementing large-scale energy and transport projects in the region, seeks a mediation role in local conflicts, and cooperates with pro-Iran groups to squeeze the United States out of the region. In addition, Russia has not shied away from establishing relations with radical armed groups like the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Houthis in Yemen,” notes Smagin.

Syria is also an important bargaining chip for Moscow’s relations with Washington, Turkey and Israel (the latter said explicitly that it decided not to send arms to Ukraine because of the Russian bases). Conversely, HTS needs Russia just as much as Russia needs HTS.

“Moscow could provide the new Syrian authorities with much-needed international legitimacy, since it’s unlikely that Europe and the United States will be rushing to open embassies in Damascus, while the Kremlin has de facto already done so. (That is also how Russia’s recognition of the Taliban began),” says Smagin.

HTS currently very much relies on Ankara for support, but if it wants to become truly independent then it needs to collect more allies and, taking a leaf out of Erdogan’s play book, Moscow is a useful counterbalance to HTS’ dependence on Turkey. Moreover, Russia is a world power with a seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), whereas Turkey is only a regional power, which will give HTS some indirect leverage over the US.

“Even if HTS proves able to quickly formalise its relationship with Türkiye, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, recognition by a global power like Russia would help bestow international legitimacy,” says Smagin.

The US and its support of the Kurds in northern Syria is the biggest obstacle that HTS currently faces and Sharaa has notably yet to comment on what amounts to the US occupation of a third of Syria’s territory, including most of its oil fields.

At the same time, Israel – which is busy destroying all of Syria’s remaining weapons and equipment so they don’t fall into the hands of Islamist rebels – could act as an effective intermediary with Russia. Israel has long followed a pragmatic policy with Russia and enjoys relatively warm relations. Israel has notably kept out of the Ukraine war and has not donated weapons or aid to Kyiv.

“Such a strategy of trying to trade international recognition of HTS in return for retaining military bases in Syria could lead Russia in two directions. Firstly, Moscow might opt to establish and provide military support for an Alawite autonomy in Syria’s Latakia (the Alawites fear the Islamists), where Russian bases are located. This would be similar to the way in which the United States has backed Syria’s Kurds, who currently control large tracts of the country’s north,” says Smagin.

“Second, the need to come to an agreement with HTS could push Russia into boosting cooperation with all kinds of radical groups globally. In this way, Russia might end up offering legitimacy to a whole range of radical groups who have seized power in countries across the world – bestowing legitimacy and extending material support in exchange for preferential treatment,” adds Smagin.

In this way, Russia becomes an insurance policy for the leaders of radical groups around the world. If they lose power and are forced to flee, they can be safe in the knowledge that they can seek refuge for themselves and their families in a luxury dacha outside of Moscow.

“Although the overthrow of Assad was a reversal for the Kremlin, it was not a total defeat for its policy in the Middle East. Even if Russia does end up losing its military bases in Syria, it still has close economic ties with Türkiye and a special relationship with Iran, while a rapprochement is underway with both the Taliban and the Houthis [in Yemen],” says Smagin. “And if Russia does find a way to work with HTS – which is not beyond the realms of possibility – it will open up a range of new options, and perhaps hand the Kremlin a competitive advantage in the region.”