Human Rights
Bleak future for Russia in the Middle East: analysts
The Middle East is no longer a top priority for Russia, which is losing respect in the region due to its unsavory alliances and the criminal actions of its generals.
![Russian Gen. Aleksander Chaiko, who is accused of war crimes in Syria and Ukraine, is seen in a photograph posted October 21, 2021. [Russian Ministry of Defense]](/gc1/images/2024/06/13/46800-russian-general-chaiko-600_384.webp)
By Samah Abdul Fattah |
Russia is losing clout and credibility in the Middle East for a host of reasons, including its close ties with Iran, the criminal actions of its top military officers in Syria and its wandering attention amid its war on Ukraine, analysts say.
"It has become clear that the Middle East is no longer a topmost priority for Russia," Cairo University international relations professor Mohieddin Ghanem told Al-Fassel.
"The Middle East is now in fourth place in the hierarchy of Russian interests, after Ukraine, China and the West," he said.
As Russia turns its attention elsewhere, its policies in the Middle East have been dominated by "a group of old guard generals," including Gen. Aleksander Chaiko, Ghanem said.
Chaiko is accused of committing war crimes in Syria in 2019 and 2020 that include attacks on hospitals, schools and populated areas in Idlib province.
In Syria, Chaiko acted "as if he were an absolute ruler, without regard to the ramifications of his actions on the future of his country's relations with Arab countries in the long term," Ghanem added.
Moscow 'out of the game'
"The presence of war generals in the Russian president's narrow circle has harmed Russian policies in the Middle East," Syrian lawyer Bashir al-Bassam told Al-Fassel.
"Arab countries do not want to get involved with the Russian regime at the expense of relations with Western countries and the United States," he said.
"The Russian intervention in Syria has only brought destruction and more killing," he added, noting that this has further eroded support for Moscow.
No Arab government "wants to deal with war criminals" who have committed crimes in Syria, North Africa and other countries on the African continent, as well as in Ukraine, he added.
Chaiko is also suspected of organizing massacres of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha and other towns around Kyiv during Russia's 2022 invasion, according to eyewitnesses and numerous news reports.
The Middle East is currently facing "major geopolitical and strategic changes," al-Bassam said, "and Moscow knows that it is now out of the game because of its attitudes that are sometimes stubborn and other times chilly."
Moscow is now out of the game because of its positions supporting dictatorial regimes. The United States publicly claims that it is fighting dictatorial regimes and claims that it supports peoples’ liberation movements and all their rightful demands for self-determination and respect for human rights, but in reality the United States thinks only about its interests and prolongs crises to exhaust and wear down all of its opponents regardless of the tragedies that peoples suffer, and the best example of this is its handling of the Syrian crisis.
In my opinion, the Russians are fools who could have dealt with the Syrian crisis in a different way and upstaged the United States by standing with the rightful demands of the Syrian people and pressuring the regime to make cautious changes in the way it deals with its people. With such position, it would have gained the people’s support and guaranteed sustainable, friendly relations with Syrian governments in the future. I am sorry to say that in Russia's case, foolishness exhausted those who treat it.
A clear and realistic article. Russia’s political behavior is unacceptable in the Middle East. We have experience of what it did with Egypt in the 1967 war, when it failed Egypt. There is no acceptance of who has this as his policy. America is an old ally, and it will modify its policy with its allies, who have spent decades, as I've mentioned, the Russian experience does not make us trust it. Regards.