Free Syrian militias in the context of "Riad al-Asaad"

On 30 September 2015, Russia launched a military intervention in Syria after a request by the regime of Bashar al-Assad for military support in its fight against the Syrian opposition and Islamic State (IS) in the Syrian civil war. The intervention began with extensive air strikes across Syria, focused on strongholds of opposition factions such as the Free Syrian Army, the Revolutionary Command Council, and Sunni militant groups comprising the Army of Conquest coalition. In line with the Assad regime's rhetoric, Syrian military chief Ali Abdullah Ayoub depicted Russian airstrikes as part of a general campaign against "terrorism." Russian special operations forces, military advisors and private military contractors like the Wagner Group were also sent to Syria to support the Assad regime, which was on the verge of collapse. Prior to the intervention, Russian involvement had included diplomatic support for Assad and billions of dollars' worth of arms and equipment for the Syrian Armed Forces. In December 2017, the Russian government announced that its troops would be deployed to Syria permanently.

At the onset of the intervention, the Syrian government controlled only 26% of Syrian territory. Although Russia initially portrayed its intervention as a "war against terrorism" solely targeting the Islamic State, Russia employed scorched-earth methods against civilian areas and Syrian opposition strongholds opposed to IS and Al-Qaeda. Weeks after the intervention began, Russian officials disclosed that President Vladimir Putin's chief objectives were maintaining the allied Ba'athist government in Damascus and capturing territories from American-backed Free Syrian militias, with a broader geo-political objective of rolling back U.S. influence. In a televised interview in October 2015, Putin said that the military operation had been thoroughly prepared in advance. He defined Russia's goal in Syria as "stabilising the legitimate power in Syria and creating the conditions for political compromise". In 2016 alone, more than 80% of Russian aerial attacks targeted opposition militias fighting the Islamic State. Despite Russia's extensive bombing of opposition strongholds, the territory under the Assad regime's actual control shrank from 26% of Syria in 2015 to 17% in early 2017.