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    January 20, 2012

Despite Criticism, Russia Stands By Syria

   James Brooke | Moscow
   Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, shakes hands with Russian Foreign
   Minister Sergei Lavrov (2008 file photo)
   Photo: AP
   Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, right, shakes hands with Russian
   Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (2008 file photo)

   As Syria takes criticism from almost all quarters, one nation - Russia
   - stands virtually alone in defending the government of President
   Bashar al-Assad.
   While Arab League ministers discussed future steps on Syria, where
   5,400 people have died in anti-government violence, Russian Foreign
   Minister Sergei Lavrov issued a warning: no sanctions and no foreign
   troops. Lavrov says that for Russia, the red line is fairly clearly
   drawn. He says Moscow will not support any sanctions.
   At the same press conference, the foreign minister said Russia would
   use its United Nations Security Council veto to deny a U.N. mandate for
   the use of foreign troops in Syria.
   At the U.N. and in Moscow, Russian diplomats place violence by Syria's
   largely civilian opposition on an equal level with violence by Syria's
   army and police.
   Lavrov says Western governments are one-sided because they ignore
   violence by Syria's opponents.
   But some say Russia sides with Syria's government. Last week, Russia's
   only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, and an eight-ship battle
   group dropped anchor at Moscow's naval base in Tarsus, Syria. Two days
   later, a freighter from St. Petersburg reportedly delivered 60 tons of
   Russian ammunition and weapons to a Syrian port.
   Carnegie Moscow Center proliferation analyst Pyotr Topychkanov says the
   Kremlin is taking a stand in Syria.
   'After the change of power in Egypt, in Iraq and in Libya, Russia has
   lost a number of contracts, including contracts in the arms trade,' he
   noted.
   Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Institute of Near Eastern Studies,
   believes that Arab politicians are using the West to knock out
   governments sympathetic to Iran.
   'We try to support stability and evolution rather than the situation in
   Libya," he said, "which gives us the view that Western politicians are
   not more than the instrument in the hands of Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
   That is not our role in this world.'
   Satanovsky, like many Russians today, is deeply skeptical of
   revolutions.
   'The problem is, from the Russian point of view, that the destruction
   of this regime will mean not democracy and stability. It will mean
   civil war. Millions of refugees. Hundreds of thousands will be killed,"
   he said. "Deaths of the Syrian Christian community, which is very
   important for the Russian Orthodox Church.'
   For Topychkanov, Russia's phobia of foreign regime change reflects the
   Kremlin's domestic insecurities.
   'After the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring, an intergovernmental
   commission was launched to assess the regime change influence to the
   domestic situation in Russia. So this is a fear, a very strong fear, in
   Moscow, in the political elite,' he said.
   As Russia faces more street protests and a presidential election on
   March 4, few people expect the Kremlin to suddenly show sympathy for
   the Arab Spring - one year after it began.