Russia continued its arms sales to the Assad regime

 "We will continue to fulfill our commitments on contracts for the sale of military equipment," said Anatoly Isaikin, head of the arms export company Rosoboronexport.

While Europeans are questioning whether to lift the embargo on arms sales to Syria, which penalizes the de facto rebel, Russia reiterates its support to the military regime in Damascus. "We will continue to fulfill our commitments on contracts for the sale of military equipment," said Anatoly Isaikin, head of the arms export company Rosoboronexport.

The amount of sales of weapons that Russia would have delivered the Syrian regime in 2011 is estimated at one billion dollars. Moscow, which blocked three resolutions of the Security Council of the UN to increase pressure against Bashar al-Assad, however, assures not to provide combat aircraft and attack helicopters in Damascus. Contracts relate mainly missile defense systems and repair of equipment damaged during the war, such as helicopters.

In the mid 2000s, the Russian authorities had delivered many ground-air missiles, anti-tank rockets and systems of air defense Syrian regime. Between 2007 and 2011, Moscow was even the main supplier of arms to Damascus.

Military cooperation between the two countries did not start today. From Catherine II, the Kremlin has sought to consolidate its presence in the Mediterranean. Far from weakening, it seems to have been revived by the events in Syria. Last month, Russia has organized "the most important exercises" military ever made by the navy in the region. Increased Russian naval activity in 2012 in the Eastern Mediterranean "materializes the support shown by its Syrian ally Moscow and puts new light on the interest of Russia to the Mediterranean and the Middle East," writes researcher Harvard Igor Delanoë, in a note published by the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS). It also aims to "warn the West against an attempt to apply the Libyan scenario Syria."

Strategic Partnership

At the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, the port of Tartous and Russian naval base became the cornerstone of military cooperation between Moscow and Damascus. Revitalized since the coming to power of Vladimir Putin, the Russian-Syrian strategic partnership has resulted in the development of port infrastructure Tartous just before the start of the war.

The fulcrum Russian Syria "is part of an overall logic and reinvestment of the World Ocean by the Russian Navy," says Igor Delanoë. Russian ships Tartous gives greater operational capacity but also in the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. Many reasons, seen from Moscow, not to give the regime of Bashar al-Assad.