“They stopped fighting to continue elsewhere”, DW: Russia’s tactics in Syria and Ukraine are the same

Hanna Notte, an expert at the Vienna Center for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (VCDNP), has long dealt with arms safety and control aspects, with a particular focus on Russia and the Middle East. With DW she talks about the similarities between Russia’s actions in Syria and now in Ukraine and what might result from them.

DW: You see parallels in Russian actions in Syria and Ukraine. What are they?

Hanna Notte: I have identified five parallels. First, Russia is waging war in sequences, at certain stages. The second is the tactic of besieging cities and bombing them, and then, I quote, the creation of “humanitarian corridors.” You have to be careful with this term.

View from Russian military interventions in Syria

Third: Foreign fighters. This is a complex issue, because Russia on the one hand accuses the other side of mobilizing foreign legionnaires, but then does it itself. Parallels four and five deal with misinformation, when it is claimed that the adversary is using people as shields. Russia has often accused terrorists of using people as shields. Now they are doing the same with the Azov battalion in Mariupol. And Russia uses misinformation: It accuses the other side of carrying out covert chemical attacks. Despite all the parallels, it is important to look at the differences between the two Russian operations in Syria and Ukraine, both in terms of purpose and dimension.

What exactly do you mean by “sequence warfare”?

In Syria we have noticed that the Assad regime and the Russian army, which intervened in September 2015, continuously stopped fighting in certain parts of the country to operate elsewhere.

In early 2017, they created the so-called “de-escalation zone” in western Syria, which allowed the Assad regime to join forces to gain territory in the east of the country. But also to reorganize and regroup. In 2018, the Assad regime, backed by Russia, returned and recaptured these “escalated areas”, with the exception of Idlib, which to this day is not under the control of the Syrian government.

Hanna Notte, expert at the Vienna Center for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament

In Ukraine, Russia has announced that the first phase of the “special military operation” has ended and is now focused on the “liberation”, I quote, of Donbas. And indeed Russian troops have withdrawn from the Kiev area and from northern Ukraine. If I now emphasize this parallel of war fragmentation, not so much because I believe, we will see the same thing again. Rather I want to urge caution from premature optimism and the assumption that just because the Russians have said they now want to focus on the Donbas, fighting in other parts of the country has finally ended.

Attempts to establish humanitarian corridors from besieged cities, particularly Mariupol, have failed several times. What strategy can be hidden behind this, from a Russian perspective?

Unfortunately, the example of Syria also shows that such corridors must be viewed with the utmost care, for various reasons. Let’s take the siege of Aleppo in 2016. It lasted more than six months, even here the Russians opened corridors, which many civilians often did not trust. Another problem is that people, for fear of not wanting to use the corridors, as on the outskirts of Damascus in 2018, are seen by the Russian military as legitimate targets of the attack. The narrative was: people had the opportunity to leave the city. Whoever stood was considered a “terrorist.” This is disturbing when you consider what is happening in Ukraine.

If we look at Mariupol and the efforts to create defensive corridors there, things get complicated. In Syria, people were offered at least some sort of option by the Russians, when setting up corridors in de-escalation zones, either to lay down their arms and stay – or to get out. Most then went to Idlib. Now in Mariupol there is a problem, that civilians were apparently forced to evacuate in the direction of Russia, that buses brought hundreds of people from Mariupol to Russia. There apparently the civilians were forced to give false evidence of what happened in Mariupol.

Let’s get to the topic of chemical weapons. There are great fears that Russia may use them at some point. Under what circumstances do you think this would be an option for Russia?

It must first be said that the red line for the use of chemical weapons has been significantly weakened by what happened in Syria. Even after Syria said it had destroyed all its arsenals of chemical weapons, such attacks took place. And Russia has even defended Syria in the OPCW, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The UN Security Council and Western countries have failed to clearly delineate this red line again.

Now the question remains: will Russia use chemical weapons in Ukraine? And here it is not a question of whether or not Russia should fear the consequences.

The Buca massacre has shown us that Russia is a little preoccupied when the international community accuses it of such atrocities. The question is, does Russia consider the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine necessary? When is a chemical weapon an effective option in a military conflict? If you look at the time when Assad used chemical weapons, you will see that from an operational and tactical point of view it was closely related to conventional use. Opposition-controlled areas were to receive collective punishment. This happened in parallel with the sieges and other acts of violence.

In Ukraine we have to ask the question, is there a protracted war, and some experts would probably say that it is meanwhile, a war that aims to demoralize the other side’s civilian population in the long run. Can the use of chemical weapons make sense then? Especially if the costs for such a mission would not be too great?

Let me finally say this, even if Russia ultimately does not use chemical weapons, it must be said that merely continuing false claims, that Ukraine is preparing a chemical offensive, are beneficial to the Russian government. First, because it supports the narrative promoted in Russia by Russian propaganda, that the threat of weapons of mass destruction comes from Ukraine. Second, the mere possibility that Russia could use chemical weapons creates fear and terror in Ukraine. So all a very convenient procedure for Russia, which costs relatively little./DW

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