- August 9, 2026
- 6:26 pm
- World News
Russia secured the right to remain in Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. But the price of this right turned out to be high: Tartus and Khmeimim should no longer remain the Russian military outposts that Moscow used under the previous regime.
Author: Stas Shifer
Stas Shifer writes for NANews about global conflicts, politics, and the impact of wars on Israel and Ukraine. The editorial team has been following the development of Russian military infrastructure in Syria for several years: from Moscow’s intervention on Bashar al-Assad’s side to the evacuation of Russian units after the collapse of his regime. In this material, we compared the new Syrian agreement with the previous status of Tartus and Khmeimim and what has already happened with the Russian presence after December 2024.
On August 9, 2026, it became known about the completion of approximately one and a half years of negotiations between Syria and Russia and the signing of a memorandum on the future of Russian facilities in Tartus and Khmeimim. Russia indeed remains in Syria. But if you look not only at the mere presence of Russian military but at the conditions under which they were allowed to stay, the picture for Moscow looks quite different.
The main conclusion of NANews is simple: Russia has not completely lost Syria, but it has lost the former status of the master of its main Syrian bases. And if you compare the new situation not with the threat of complete expulsion after Assad’s fall, but with what Moscow had until December 2024, it is a defeat.
What Russia signed on August 9
According to the Syrian Foreign Ministry, which was disseminated by the state agency SANA, the new memorandum is supposed to completely change the status of Russian facilities on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
The Syrian state receives control over civilian facilities, including Khmeimim airport and the fourth commercial pier of the Tartus port. They are to gradually become part of the country’s overall civilian infrastructure system.
Even more significant is the change in the military part of the agreement. The Syrian Foreign Ministry speaks not about the continuation of Russian bases in their previous form, but about transforming Russian military facilities into joint training and qualification centers.
The transition to the new system is allocated no more than three months.
This is the key to understanding the whole story.
Russia remains. Russian specialists and military cooperation with Syria do not automatically disappear. But the previous model, when Khmeimim and Tartus were primarily Russian strategic facilities, is ending.
Reuters also reports that the management of civilian facilities is transferred to Syria, military infrastructure receives the format of joint training centers, and commercial sections of Tartus, including pier No. 4 and related warehouses, return to Syrian management.
Russia used to be the master here
To understand the scale of the loss, one must remember what Syria represented for Moscow under Bashar al-Assad.
Russian intervention in 2015 effectively saved Assad’s regime at a time when its position was becoming critical. In return, Moscow received something it had almost nowhere else: a permanent military infrastructure in the eastern Mediterranean.
Tartus served as the only Russian repair and supply point for the fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. Khmeimim became a major airbase and simultaneously an important logistics hub for Russian operations not only in Syria but also in the African direction. In 2017, Moscow received a free 49-year lease of the facility in Tartus.
In other words, it was not just about a few Russian instructors on Syrian territory.
Russia gained a military foothold, allowing it to demonstrate presence far from its own borders, service the fleet, transfer aviation, weapons, and people, and declare Moscow’s return to the ranks of global players.
NANews wrote after Assad’s fall about how Russian units were gathering at Tartus and Khmeimim in anticipation of evacuation. At that time, it was still unclear whether Moscow would retain these facilities at all.
Today, the answer has appeared.
It will retain presence — yes.
It will retain the former status — no.
From “our base” to “joint center”
The difference between these two formulas is enormous.
A foreign state’s military base means the ability to independently deploy forces there and use the facility in accordance with separate interstate agreements.
A joint training center under the new system of relations is a different construction. Here, the territory’s owner remains Syria, and the Russian presence becomes part of an agreement with the new Syrian leadership.
It is no longer Moscow that determines the rules of Syria’s existence thanks to the Assad regime’s dependence on Russian aviation.
Now Damascus determines the conditions under which Moscow can stay.
That is why the formula “Russia retained the bases” hides half of the event.
Russia retained access.
Russia retained relations with the Syrian authorities.
Russia will likely retain part of the personnel, training, and logistics capabilities.
But Russia no longer receives confirmation of the former status of Tartus and Khmeimim as its independent military outposts.
Associated Press describes the result even more definitively: the new agreement ultimately ends the use of the two facilities as Russian military outposts and converts them into joint centers.
This is a defeat not because the Russian flag will disappear from Syria tomorrow.
The defeat is that Moscow, over a year and a half of negotiations, was no longer fighting for an expansion of presence — it was bargaining for the opportunity to retain at least part of what it previously considered almost guaranteed.
The fall of Assad overturned the negotiating position
Until December 2024, it was hard to imagine a situation where the Russian leadership would have to ask the Syrian authorities for permission to stay in Khmeimim.
But then the regime of the man for whose preservation Russia fought for almost a decade collapsed.
Bashar al-Assad fled and received asylum in Moscow. The new power in Damascus included people against whom Russian aviation had previously waged war.
Russia suddenly found itself a guest of the political victors it had tried to destroy.
NANews closely followed this turnaround. Later, Damascus already presented Russia with demands related to Assad, Moscow’s previous policy, and the future of Russian bases. And during Ahmed al-Sharaa’s visit to Moscow, the fate of Tartus and Khmeimim became one of the central issues of new relations with the Kremlin. We analyzed this in the material “Al-Sharaa in the Kremlin: Syria is changing, but Russian bases remain a bargaining chip”.
It turns out to be almost a mirror situation.
Under Assad, Syria depended on Russian military power.
After Assad, Russia became dependent on Syria’s consent to maintain its military presence.
This is what has fundamentally changed.
But Moscow still won something
It would be a mistake to present the agreement as a complete capitulation of Russia.
After the fall of Assad’s regime, there was a scenario in which Russia could lose Syrian facilities altogether. In December 2024, Moscow was already reducing its presence, withdrawing some equipment, and regrouping forces around Khmeimim and Tartus. Reuters then recorded the preparation of heavy transport aircraft and the movement of Russian units.
This finale was avoided by the Kremlin.
The new Syrian government did not sever relations with Moscow, did not demand the immediate withdrawal of all Russian military personnel, and after a year and a half of negotiations, agreed to continue the Russian presence in a new format.
Therefore, for the Kremlin, today’s agreement can be called a tactical salvation after a strategic defeat.
If the question is posed as: “Could Russia have lost everything, but retained something?” — Moscow won.
If another question is posed: “Did Russia retain the position in Syria it had under Assad?” — it lost.
And the second question is significantly more important for assessing Russian influence.
Even commercial Tartus now operates under Syrian rules
There is another detail that clearly shows the change in the balance of power.
Russia tried to retain Tartus not only as a military but also as an economic hub.
In July, Reuters reported on plans by Russian businesses to organize a logistics center for grain, oil, metal, wood, and other goods through the fourth pier of Tartus. The initial declared goal was about 250,000 tons of cargo per month.
But even then, the Syrian side emphasized that the activities of such a center should be carried out under the control of Syrian state structures.
Now the new memorandum establishes an even clearer construction: commercial pier No. 4, warehouses, and related infrastructure are under Syrian management.
That is, even where Russia tries to replace lost military dominance with economic presence, it has to work not instead of the Syrian state, but through it.
For the imperial model of influence, this is a fundamental change.
And why does Israel even care if the Russians stay?
Here the story becomes significantly more complicated.
Usually, the reduction of Russian military influence near Israel could automatically be considered good news. Especially considering Moscow’s long-standing cooperation with the Assad regime, Iran, and forces associated with Hezbollah.
But after Assad’s fall, another player appeared — Turkey.
In February 2025, Reuters, citing American and other informed sources, reported an unexpected thing: Israeli representatives were urging the US not to seek the immediate removal of Russian bases from Syria.
The reason was not Jerusalem’s love for Moscow.
Israel feared that the vacuum after Russia would quickly be filled by Turkey, which supported the new Syrian authorities. In this case, the Russian presence was considered one of the possible counterbalances to Ankara’s excessive strengthening.
It turns out to be a paradox.
Russia is weakened — this is beneficial to Israel in one sense.
But a completely disappeared Russia could create conditions for an even stronger Turkish presence — and this was already perceived by part of the Israeli leadership as a potential new problem.
That is why NANews — Israel News considers the agreement not as a Russian-Syrian news somewhere far from us. The balance of power between Russia, Turkey, and the new Syria is formed literally near the Israeli border.
What we do not know yet
The memorandum provides a political framework but does not yet reveal the most important military details.
Data on how many Russian military personnel will be able to remain in Syria have not been published. It is unclear whether Russian combat aircraft will be able to be permanently based in Khmeimim, which ships and under what conditions will be able to use Tartus, whether Russian air defense systems will remain, and what the powers of Russian military personnel within the new joint centers will be.
There is no reason to invent answers instead of the text of future agreements.
It is these parameters that will show how much real military content will remain behind the diplomatic formula “joint center”.
But one thing is no longer necessary to wait for.
The Syrian side officially announced the redefinition of the role of military facilities, the transfer of civilian infrastructure under state control, and the transformation of Russian bases into joint centers.
The former status is no more.
Russia lost Assad’s Syria but bought a ticket to the new Syria
The Kremlin will surely be able to present the agreement to the domestic audience as proof that Russia “could not be ousted” from the Middle East.
Formally, this will even be true.
But politically, something else is more important.
In 2015, Russian planes arrived in Syria to save a government that depended on Moscow.
In 2026, Moscow is negotiating with Assad’s victorious opponents the conditions under which it will be allowed to continue its presence.
Khmeimim and Tartus were symbols of Russia’s return to the Middle East. Now they become symbols of how much Russia’s position has changed after the fall of the allied regime.
No matter how you look at it, the transition from a strategic airbase and naval outpost to joint training centers cannot be called a retention of former influence.
You can retain people.
You can retain part of the infrastructure.
You can retain relationships.
But the status of the master is already lost.
That is why today’s result is most accurately described by one formula:
Russia lost the Syria it had under Assad but managed to negotiate the right not to leave the new Syria completely.
For Moscow, this is better than expulsion.
But it cannot be called a victory for a country that until recently considered Tartus and Khmeimim the pillars of its global military presence.
NANews — Israel News will continue to monitor the next stage: what exactly will remain of the Russian military contingent after the end of the three-month transition period and whether the “joint training centers” will indeed be training centers — or whether Moscow will try to retain significantly more military capabilities within the new structure than the name suggests.