September 2015 – Russia directly intervenes in the war
In the fourth year of the war, in which the US, Turkey and Iran have also intervened, Russia has changed the form of its support for Damascus and has entered the war with aerial bombardment.
With the intervention of the Russian air force, the war has accelerated in favor of Assad.
Putin explained in an interview with the BBC on October 12 that “the jihadists in the country are a threat to Russia and that they entered the war to prevent these groups”:
“We do not need foreign lands. We have no intention of rebuilding the Soviet Union. But we must defend our independence and sovereignty.”
Following Russia’s intervention, Assad was seen outside Syria for the first time on October 21; in Moscow.
A month later, on November 24, a Russian warplane that was said to have violated Turkish airspace was shot down by Turkish jets.
After several months of high tension between Moscow and Ankara, Erdoğan sent a letter of apology to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
The tension between the two leaders, who met in Petersburg on August 9, gave way to close cooperation.
Turkey’s relationship with the US was getting worse at this time because of the support given to the YPG.
Less than a month later, Turkey’s Euphrates Shield Operation began.
At the end of the same year, a ceasefire was declared in Aleppo; the opposition retreated to Idlib.
Years later, in an interview with a Russian journalist, Assad would say “taking back Aleppo” when asked about the turning point of the war.
In the meantime, two events that had a major impact on Turkey occurred. On December 19, Russian Ambassador to Ankara Andrey Karlov was assassinated in Ankara.
On December 22, images of two Turkish soldiers being burned to death by ISIS were shared on the internet. Access to the images was blocked, and the family of one of the soldiers told the Turkish press months later, “We were told that our son was martyred.”
Russia largely avoided YPG regions in its intervention in order to avoid confrontation with the US. The US also targeted only ISIS regions for three years.
However, after Donald Trump became president, he fired missiles at a Syrian army base for the first time in April 2017. In April 2018, Trump struck Assad’s bases once again.
Syrian Refugee Crisis in the World
Just a few years after a small group fleeing the conflict first arrived at the Turkish border in April 2011, the number of Syrian refugees had reached millions.
Initially taking refuge in neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, and temporarily settling in tent cities there, Syrians saw that the war would not end anytime soon.
Because the civil war had now turned into a proxy war involving Turkey, the Gulf countries, Iran, Russia and the US.
Israel had also begun missile attacks targeting Hezbollah and other militias backed by Iran in areas close to its border in Syria.
Syrians who have now left their homes for good have sought asylum in Europe. A flow of migrants has begun to flow into Greece via the Aegean Sea.
In 2015, these crossings and human trafficking had reached such a point that many Iraqis, Afghans and refugees from other Asian countries who wanted to take advantage of the door opened by Syrians had created routes spanning thousands of kilometers.
According to the data of the International Organization for Migration in 2015, more than 821 thousand people crossed into Greece illegally via Turkey; 706 people lost their lives in the Aegean Sea.
Among them was three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose lifeless body washed up on the shores of Bodrum.
When Europe saw tens of thousands of migrants at its borders, it put a readmission agreement into effect with Turkey in March 2016. With the agreement, Turkey took strict measures at the borders and illegal crossings significantly decreased.
However, in February 2020, at a time of tension between Turkey and the European Union, Erdoğan announced that he was opening the doors to migrants:
“What did we say months ago? ‘If this continues, we will have to open the doors.’ They did not believe it. What did we do yesterday? We opened the doors. We will not close these doors from now on, and this will continue.”
A large number of migrants who went to Edirne to cross the border were subjected to harsh interventions by the Greek police and sent back.
De-escalation zones declared, May 2017 opposition retreated to Idlib
In 2017, the Turkish-backed opposition remained largely in Idlib and Jarabulus-Mare.
On May 4, Russia, Iran and Turkey decided to “establish four de-escalation zones” in the areas where the opposition was located at a meeting in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.
The first was the vast Idlib region; the second was Rastan and Talbisa, where more than 150,000 civilians live; the third was Eastern Ghouta, with a population of 700,000 and where radical groups also live; and the last was Dera and Quneitra.
Separate agreements were signed for these regions with the involvement of Egypt, Jordan and the US, and by July 2018, thousands of fighters from Eastern Ghouta, Rastan-Talbisa and Quneitra-Dera were loaded onto buses and sent to Idlib with their families.
Thus, the opposition, who began fighting against Assad in 2011, retreated to the northwest of the country.
The population of Idlib has risen to over three million.
This time, the Syrian army and Russia turned their attention to Idlib, the last “de-escalation zone.”
The operations of the Syrian and Russian armies have continued intermittently until today.
In September 2018, Russia, Turkey and Iran signed an agreement and established observation points in Idlib to create a buffer zone between the opposition and the Syrian army.
Bashar Assad, who stated that the agreement was ‘temporary’, announced that he had not given up on Idlib, saying, “Our government’s main goal is to establish control in every region of Syria.”
On March 5, 2020, in the region where Russia and Turkey reached a new agreement, Assad’s army had advanced and the opposition had been squeezed into a narrower area.
Turkey, which lost dozens of soldiers in the attacks, had to move some observation points from the region that remained under the control of the Damascus army.
A large part of Idlib was under the control of HTS.
The US announced in December 20182 that ISIS no longer has territory
The US President at the time, Trump, announced in December 2018 that ISIS had no more territory under its control and would withdraw from Syria. However, as a result of the backlash, it only withdrew 1,000 soldiers.
On the other side of the Euphrates, the Syrian army, along with Russian mercenaries and Iranian militias, continued to fight ISIS.
Five years after Obama began providing aid to the YPG, Trump announced once again that he would withdraw from Syria after a phone call with Erdoğan in October 2019.
This statement was a green light for Ankara, which had been planning a military operation against the YPG east of the Euphrates for a long time.
Following Erdoğan’s words, “The time to open the way for the peace springs, which have been decided upon and the process has begun, is perhaps today or tomorrow,” Turkey launched ‘Operation Peace Spring’ against the YPG on October 9.
The operation ended within two weeks with agreements reached first with the US and then with Russia.
It was decided that the YPG would withdraw 30 kilometers from the border and that Russian and Syrian armies would be present in this region.
The YPG has not withdrawn completely to this day.
