Civilians In The Crosshairs As Russia Scrambles To Stop Militant Offensive In Syria

The footage is striking, stark -- and familiar -- from both Syria and Ukraine.

In Syria’s Idlib Province, one man sprays foam on a tangle of flaming wreckage as others run down a rubble-strewn street and into a heavily damaged hospital corridor. At a camp for displaced people, a resident says he pulled the dead bodies of five people from the debris after what he says was a Russian air strike.

“May God accept them as martyrs,” he said of the victims in a video filmed by the Associated Press.

In 2015, when Russia intervened in the civil war in Syria, its air strikes were the most crucial part of a campaign that was instrumental in averting a potential government defeat and keeping President Bashar al-Assad in power.

In addition to propping up an ally, Russia’s first major military foray outside the former Soviet Union in decades increased Moscow’s clout in the Middle East and beyond. It was a slap in the face of the United States and the West, which despised Assad for his human rights record and wanted him out.

Those gains for Russian President Vladimir Putin came at an enormous cost for Syrian civilians, who were often the victims of the devastating air strikes despite Moscow’s claim that it only targets what it calls “terrorists.” Estimates of overall civilian deaths since the war began in 2011 range from more than 300,000 to over 600,000.

SEE ALSO: The Key Players In Syria's Reignited Civil War

Now, it’s happening again, as Assad’s government and Russia scramble to stop a surprise offensive led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

The HTS and allied groups have captured most of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, in the biggest push by government opponents since a cease-fire brokered by Russia and Turkey in 2020 led to a relative lull in the war.

“Russia presided over very extensive civilian damage in Syria in the past, and there is no reason to believe that it will be any different this time,” Jenny Mathers, an expert on Russian politics and security and a senior lecturer at Aberystwyth University, said in written comments to RFE/RL.

Accounts and images from Idlib -- a rebel and militant stronghold in northwestern Syria -- and elsewhere since the offensive began late November appear to bear that out.

Video geo-confirmed by RFE/RL

Russian air strikes damaged a cluster of four hospitals and a health administration building in Idlib on December 2, according to the White Helmets, a rescue organization operating in opposition-held parts of Syria.

Video geo-confirmed by RFE/RL

Photos and footage showed burning vehicles, clouds of smoke, buildings damaged inside and out, and streets strewn with dust and debris.

Video geo-confirmed by RFE/RL

“Most of the strikes have seemed to be directed at assets which may be considered crucial to [Russia’s] operational objectives,” Nicole Grajewski, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in written comments to RFE/RL.

“However, Russia has never shown a real particular concern for civilian casualties, especially in rebel-held areas,” she added.

In part, that’s because Russia’s air forces are “not amazing at dynamic targeting,” Grajewski wrote.

But she suggested that Russia has also shown a lack of concern for civilian life with its “prior siege tactics in eastern Ghouta and Aleppo during the earlier stages of the campaign -- not to mention Ukraine.”

'An Ad Hoc Response'

Since Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian forces have frequently hit apartment buildings, private homes, and public places such as supermarkets and shopping malls in cities and towns across the country.

The missile and drone attacks have killed and wounded civilians daily.

Lviv Residents Mourn Mother, 3 Daughters Killed In Russian Attack

Russia has also targeted crucial civilian facilities, such as power plants and other energy infrastructure.

Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian politics and security, said that for the most part, Russia “neither deliberately targets civilians nor avoids them: if they are in the way of a strike deemed operationally necessary, so be it.”

“That said, sometimes they do deliberately target civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, power stations and water plants, in order to drive people out of areas they wish to depopulate,” he added in written comments.

But he said that in terms of tactics and aims, the current Russian bombings in Syria differ from its air campaign against Ukraine.

In Syria, “this is an ad hoc emergency response to a crisis, in Ukraine, a deliberate strategy of degrading the critical national infrastructure,” said Galeotti, who is an honorary professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

“However, they certainly reflect a common doctrine, a way of war that regards civilian casualties as inevitable -- and sometimes necessary,” he added.