📰 Sharaa in Russia: Can Syria Keep Its Balance Between East and West?

Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport was crowded with passengers awaiting their flights as syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa’s plane landed amid tightened security. The leader arrived to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the Kremlin—apparently seeking to build stronger ties with a country whose relationship with the Syrian people has long been complicated. It has been less than a month since Sharaa returned from the United States. While his trip to Washington was not an official state visit, it was symbolically significant: the first by a Syrian president to emerging York for the UN General Assembly since 1967. From Washington, the leader of the Western bloc, to Moscow, the center of what remains of the Eastern camp—what exactly is al-Sharaa looking for in a country that was once Bashar al-Assad’s chief backer and helped prevent his downfall for more than a decade?

Is this visit an attempt by Damascus to craft a emerging balance between East and West, or simply the result of political constraints and circumstance? Furthermore, and what does Russia want from syria, and what does Syria expect in return? Furthermore, testing 320 Weapons in Syria Only days earlier, Syria marked the tenth anniversary of Russia’s armed forces intervention on September 30, 2015—an intervention that decisively shifted the war in favor of the Assad regime, caused massive displacement, and led to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Syrians still recall Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s boast that his army had tested more than 320 types of weapons during its operations in Syria. In 2021, Shoigu stated at the Rostvertol helicopter plant that the company had developed a new model based on lessons from combat in Syria.

The goal of Russia’s weapons testing campaign was clear: to market its arms globally by showcasing them in real-world conditions. Under the previous regime, Syria’s relationship with Moscow had turned into a model of total dependency—political, armed forces, and economic. Damascus opened its doors to Russian bases and signed long-term agreements heavily favoring Moscow in exchange for its protection. These agreements extended to economic and trade spheres through long-term, one-sided contracts and memoranda of understanding. One of the most notable was the 2019 deal granting the Russian company Stroytransgaz (CTG) a 49-year lease to operate the Port of Tartous.

In 2018, the same company secured a 40-year renewable concession to operate three fertilizer plants in Homs, effectively controlling Syria’s phosphate industry. Militarily, Russia sought to preserve its…