Russia, Syria and the supposed war against the “Islamic State”

A little bit more than a month ago, Russia joined the “war against Islamic State” and started carrying out air raids in Syria. The military operation has divided the Russian Muslims, raising questions about how to deal with IS-sympathizers in their own country. This could have consequences for Vladimir Putin.

by Sarah Reinke

Russia has been carrying out attacks on targets in Syria since September 30. Before, President Putin had gotten permission from the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house, which consists of two representatives for each of Russia’s regions. The senators unanimously decided that the Russian army should be allowed to operate outside the state territory. Not even one of the 130 representatives voted against the plan, and nobody asked why the Russian army should actually be involved in a conflict in Syria. Lew Schlosberg, chairman of the Yabloko party in Pskov (a city in northwest Russia) is furious about this. In his article “Vladimir Putin has decided to return to the highest political level – on the blood of Russian soldiers”, he warns that this mission could be very dangerous for Russia. Putin’s central motif is to secure and to extend his own power – and not, as he claims, to fight the “Islamic State” (IS). He takes a lot of risks: fallen Russian soldiers, surely – as in eastern Ukraine – but also dead Syrian civilians and incalculable consequences of his politics in his own country.

Many Muslims are critical about Russia’s activities in Syria

Even if Putin’s “carrot-and-stick”-politics were enough to align the religious dignitaries of the Orthodox Christians and the Muslims to the state policy, there are critical voices against the intervention in Syria, placing emphasis on negative consequences for Russia. The peace between the different religious communities and (often coinciding) the ethnic groups is fragile. The conflicts concerning a “traditional versus a non-traditional Islam” and the various interpretations of Islam reflect the differences between the Muslim population groups in Russia and the state. In most of the Republics, for example, it is not allowed to wear a veil in public, while it is even mandatory for women in Chechnya. Under the pretext of fighting “extremism”, there have been many raids against Muslims in recent years. Some voices even spoke of targeted persecution against the Muslim population. Russia’s military intervention in Syria could revive these conflicts. Official representatives of the Muslim regions are eager to assure their support – especially Ramzan Kadyrov, the infamous dictator in Chechnya and one of Putin’s most loyal allies, who offered to deploy 20,000 special forces for ground operations – while the 20 million Muslims in Russia are deeply divided. About 90 percent of them are Sunnis. Because Putin’s allies in Iraq, Iran and Syria are Shiites and Alawites, there are several posts in social networks calling the president “Putin the Shiite”. Thus, it is not surprising that the Sunni Muslims are against Russian military operations in Syria.