In Ukraine, Russia is using the same tactics it used in Syria. Why it’s not working - The Daily 202 (The Washington Post)

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In Ukraine, Russia is using the same tactics it used in Syria. Why it’s not working. The Daily 202: The Washington Post, April 14, 2022

A Syrian boy displaced by war in Aleppo sells cotton-candy to help provide for his family. (Alice Martins for The Washington Post)

Everyone agrees: Russian aggressions against Syrian civilians previewed the horrors it’s now inflicting in Ukraine. Hospitals bombed. Children slaughtered. Electricity and water shut off.  War-torn Syria is getting more public attention than it has in years, especially with the news that President Vladimir Putin made his former Syria commander top dog in Ukraine. To many, Russia’s bombardment of Mariupol feels like a repeat of the 2016 bombing of Aleppo. Once again, Russia is disregarding humanitarian corridors, spreading propaganda and committing war crimes.

“As the war drags on, the parallels deepen,” my colleague Ishaan Tharoor writes. “The ruthless tactics and bombing campaigns that Russia unfurled across the Middle Eastern nation served as something of a trial run for the Russian war effort in Ukraine. And, in less than two months, the battles are producing effects on the ground that are tragically familiar to anyone who experienced or watched Syria’s decade-long implosion.”

But — fortunately for Ukrainians — the two conflicts differ in some crucial ways. Syria may have emboldened Putin, but it’s hardly a playbook for invading Ukraine, where Ukraine’s stronger-than-expected defense is now calling Russia’s military prowess into serious question. Let’s explore some reasons.

Russia could hide its military shortcomings in Syria — but not in Ukraine

Putin is sending loads more troops to Ukraine than he ever sent to Syria. At any given time, he put only several thousand troops in Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad’s effort to squash opposition groups. That allowed him to mask any deficiencies by rotating his best units in and out, said Joel Rayburn, who served as the United States Special Envoy for Syria from 2018 to 2021.

That’s simply not an option in Ukraine, where Putin has sent an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 troops. Russia’s military is on display to the world — and it doesn’t look pretty. It’s been slow to switch course, mired in clunky bureaucracy and operating with poor intelligence. For example, when Russia approached Kyiv it did so by sending a long column of tanks and other military vehicles which had to stay on the roads and were therefore vulnerable to attack by Ukrainians. In Syria, Russia mostly stuck to giving air support. (Here, my colleague Liz Sly outlines other missteps by Russia.)

“[Russia’s] institutional shortcomings in manning, training, equipping and leading — and just operating — came out very clearly,” Rayburn told me.

Russia is up against a united government this time

In Syria, Russia aligned with the central government, led by Assad, against opposition groups who became fragmented over time. In Ukraine, Russian is up against the unified central government of Ukraine. Assad promulgated a global propaganda campaign labeling all opposition groups — including peaceful protesters — as “terrorists” aligned with ISIS. The oppressive regime’s tactics forced divisions among the dozens of individual groups and clouded the initial rally cries for freedom. Eventually, the various groups lost the same vision for the way forward; for example, some just wanted Assad gone while others with more extreme views wanted to replace his regime with an Islamist government. It’s a different scenario entirely in Ukraine. Russia’s annexation of Crimea back in 2014 prompted Ukraine to start beefing up its military. Its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been viewed as a strong uniter of the country. And Ukrainians have better morale because they’re fighting alongside each other for their homes and families.

“The Syrian resistance was never well-organized, whereas the Ukrainians have really held together,” said Michel O’Hanlon, director of research for foreign policy for the Brookings Institution. “You had opponents of Assad working at cross purposes,” said Steve Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Unlike Ukraine, where you have a president, army and civil defense.”

Ukrainians are better armed than Syrians were

In Syria, the Russians were mostly up against light infantry — not heavy weaponry — and virtually no air defense. But in Ukraine, Russia vastly miscalculated the ability of its bombing campaign to take out the country’s air force and air-defense systems.

“[Russia] didn’t anticipate the kind of resistance,” Cook said.

And because Ukraine enjoys broad international support, it has received a steady supply of weapons from the United States and allies. While the United States supplied some weapons to Syrian opposition groups, the scale was much smaller and the aid didn’t come until a few years into the war. When Russia first invaded seven weeks ago, Ukrainians met with surprising success by using Turkish-made drones called Bayraktars to demolish Russian equipment.  Now, as Russia appears to gird up for a second phase of its offensive, the United States is bolstering its supply of weapons to the country. The Biden administration is preparing to transfer armored Humvees and other sophisticated equipment, my colleagues Dan Lamothe and Karoun Demirjian reported.

Syrians are sharing their experience with Ukrainians

My colleague Josh Rogin recently interviewed the leader of the Syrian Civil Defense Force, known as the White Helmets. While the group’s primary role is to rescue, evacuate and give emergency care to civilians, its volunteers have recently focused on helping Ukrainians. They’re preparing a series of videos that give Ukrainians practical advice on how to survive a Russian assault, with tips like using walkie-talkies instead of cellphones and watching for follow up attacks — known as “double taps” — seven to nine minutes after the first one to hit first responders. I caught up Wednesday with its leader, Raed al Saleh, who pointed something else out. He noted that Ukraine already has infrastructure in place for delivering aid, whereas in Syria it took years to get aid flowing.

“The support and resources in Syria was something very different,” he said. “It took many years to establish resources and NGOs.”