Russia bombing Syria: what’s happening and why, explained

On the last day of September, Russia officially began bombing targets in Syria. It said it was bombing ISIS — but it was really targeting opposition groups that are fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime (incidentally, they’re also fighting ISIS).

This has come after a month in which Syria’s war, raging since 2011, was at the center of global attention. The war has included the crisis of 4 million refugees, symbolized by Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi, whose body washed up on the shores of Turkey in early September after his family attempted to make their way to Europe.

Why is Russia bombing Syria? How did this happen? What does it have to do with the Bashar al-Assad and with ISIS, and what does it mean for Syria’s war and for the United States? What follows is an explanation of the very basics, written so that anyone can understand it.

Russia, once a superpower with proxies around the globe, does not have a lot of reliable allies left — and one of its remaining few is in real trouble. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, four years into the civil war he began by mass-murdering peaceful protesters in 2011, has lost control over most of the country.

Russia has moved a small but significant military force into Syria, adding a volatile new dimension to Syria’s now four-year civil war. And on Wednesday, Russia made its first official airstrikes in Syria.

The Russian installation, in a couple of military sites along Syria’s Mediterranean coast, is far short of a full invasion force, but it’s still a meaningful escalation, potentially making Russia a direct participant in the war for the first time. Russia has moved in a few hundred troops, 28 fighter jets, and 14 helicopter gunships and transports, as well as six tanks, 15 artillery pieces, and some other equipment.

Putin has a big problem in Syria — one to which Western coverage of the Russian military intervention in Syria has not paid much attention.

Namely, the intervention is not at all popular with Russians themselves. Because Putin’s personal popularity is key to his political longevity, that could be a very serious matter indeed for the Russian leader.

Russia began bombing targets in Syria on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed his military intervention there as targeting terrorist groups, especially ISIS. And Russia said its strikes today were launched against ISIS.

Don’t believe it. The strikes reported this morning aren’t happening anywhere near ISIS territory and aren’t actually hitting ISIS positions, as a look at the following map from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) should make clear. In fact, Russia is bombing ISIS’s enemies in the Syrian opposition — which makes a lot more sense if you understand what Russia is really trying to accomplish.

It’s true that Russia has legitimate concerns about terrorism — the country has fought Islamist extremists in Chechnya, and a number of ISIS fighters are of Chechen origin. Putin has, since taking power in 2000, highlighted counterterrorism as an area where the West and Russia can cooperate.

But this also seems designed to pull the US and other Western powers toward Russia’s position on Syria, which states that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is the only viable ally against extremism there and should thus be embraced as an ally rather than treated as part of the problem. The US is unlikely to join Putin in treating Assad as an ally; Obama, in his UN speech, said the Syrian leader has to go. But perhaps the Russian leader hopes he can coax the US a little closer to tolerating Assad.