MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin says he will start
pulling his armed forces out of Syria, five months after he ordered a military
intervention that turned the tide of the war in favour of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad.

“I believe that the task put before the defence
ministry and Russian armed forces has, on the whole, been fulfilled,”
Putin said at a Kremlin meeting with his defence and foreign ministers at which
he announced the withdrawal, starting Tuesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had
telephoned Assad to inform him of the Russian decision, but Peskov said the two
leaders had not discussed Assad’s future – the biggest obstacle to reaching a
peace agreement.

The move was announced on the day United
Nations-brokered talks between the warring sides in Syria resumed in Geneva.

Putin ordered an intensification of Russia’s diplomatic
efforts to end the civil war in Syria, which has dragged on for five years,
killed thousands of people and displaced millions, many of them seeking refuge
in Europe.

But the Russian leader signalled Moscow would keep a
military presence: he did not give a deadline for the completion of the
withdrawal and said Russian forces would stay on at the port of Tartous and at
the Hmeymim air base in Syria’s Latakia province, from which Russia has launched
most of its air strikes.

Questions remained about the practical implications of
Putin’s announcement. It was not clear if Russian air strikes would stop.
Russia will retain the capability to launch them, from the Latakia base.

Through its intervention in Syria, Putin has restored
Russia’s status as a major international player capable of exerting its
influence far from its borders, and forced the United States to reckon with
Moscow’s interests.

Russia’s intervention halted a rebel advance on Assad’s
stronghold in Latakia just as the collapse of his forces seemed imminent. They
gained time to regroup and then retake ground from the opposition.

But there was a recognition in Moscow that pressing
ahead with the military operation would produce diminishing returns. Russian
officials have said it is unrealistic to try to restore Assad’s control over
all of Syria and the time had come to negotiate a peace.

The campaign in Syria was Russia’s biggest combat
mission outside the former Soviet Union since the Red Army’s occupation of
Afghanistan.

It weighed on an already fragile Russian economy and
poisoned relations with Turkey, a major trader partner, after Ankara shot down
a Russian fighter jet that was part of the Syria deployment.

Russia’s rouble currency gained by more than 1 percent
immediately after news broke of the withdrawal.

– Reuters