The Russian military campaign succeeded in rescuing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from overthrowing him very well, but the Kremlin discovered that he was losing influence on his ally. He also grew more confident about remaining in power. In an attempt to regain influence, Russia refused to provide air support to enable Assad to launch an attack. The last rebel stronghold in Idlib, according to Kremlin advisers.
Almost two years after President Vladimir Putin saved Assad from defeat, and with the growing sense that the war was beginning to favor him, Putin faced the dilemma of pressure on Assad to accept a symbolic power-sharing deal to end the six-month period. To make any concessions to opposition groups in the United Nations-led peace talks, which will resume in Geneva next month.
Relationships "tense"
"Russia's relations with Assad are now tense," said Andrei Kortonov, head of Russia's International Affairs Council in Moscow, adding that "Russia is not ready to allow Assad to wage war until victory."
Assad's forces are pushing towards the eastern strategy of the city, which has been under state control since 2015. The city provides control of the border with Iraq as well as oil and agricultural-rich lands. If the attack succeeds, it will enable the Syrian army to focus on Idlib in the northwest. That the attack would be possible only with the help of the Russian air force.
Control of Idleb '
As al-Qaeda's former wing, the Sham Liberation Organization, gained power in Idlib and the preoccupation of US-backed and Syrian government forces to attack the state organization on different fronts, Assad would promote the idea of liberating the city and expelling terrorists.
Elena Supunina, a Middle East expert at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, which advises the Kremlin, said the new major offensive by Syrian government forces would not work without support from Russian air strikes. "The Syrian leadership made a mistake in assessing whether Russia would help them control Idlib, as it did with Aleppo," she said. "Moscow has decided to rein in loyalists in Damascus because the priority now is not to control Idlib."
