From Damascus to Cyrenaica

The fall of the Assad regime has led Russia to pivot from Syria to Libya to secure its Mediterranean influence.

The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime last month has turned the Syrian capital into a graveyard for Russian ambitions, a stark epitaph for what once seemed like Moscow’s triumphant return to global geopolitics. Damascus, long a prized jewel in Vladimir Putin’s crown of influence, symbolized more than a strategic alliance. It was an ideological defiance, a barricade against Western encroachment and a showcase for Russia’s military prowess.

Now, for Moscow, the shock of Syria’s unravelling has prompted an urgent imperative for reinvention. Like a chess player unfazed by the loss of a queen, Putin’s foreign policy machinery has shifted its gaze westward to Libya. Eastern Libya, with its fractured politics and strategic Mediterranean coastline, has emerged as Russia’s new staging ground. Troops, warplanes and Wagner Group mercenaries, now rebranded with Orwellian flair as the ‘Africa Corps’ are being redeployed to Libyan bases.

This has led Khalifa Haftar, the strongman of the Libyan National Army, to step into the spotlight. Haftar is no stranger to Russian patronage. His transactional relationship with Moscow mirrors Assad’s. In Syria, Russia gained naval access to Tartus and control of Hmeimim airbase in exchange for propping up Assad. In Libya, Haftar’s fiefdom in Cyrenaica offers Russia a gateway to Africa and a lever to disrupt Western designs. Yet, like Assad, Haftar’s reliance on Moscow reveals the vulnerability beneath the veneer of strength. His grip on power depends on the illusion of autonomy, even as Russian mercenaries provide the scaffolding.

Haftar’s dependence deepened after his failed 2019 assault on Tripoli, a miscalculated gambit that left his forces in retreat and his credibility diminished. Enter the Wagner Group, whose drones and military advisors have kept Haftar afloat while tethering him to Moscow’s geopolitical agenda. It is an uneasy partnership. For Russia, Haftar is a tool, not a partner—a proxy to further its ambitions in the Mediterranean, not a leader to champion.

Western policymakers, meanwhile, are caught in their own quagmire. Washington’s repeated attempts to woo figures like Haftar with promises of legitimacy and patronage betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the power dynamics at play. Haftar’s strength is borrowed, a reality that mirrors Assad’s reliance on Moscow’s firepower in Syria. The West’s failure to grasp this has left it flailing in a game where the rules are being rewritten in Moscow.

Yet the story of Libya, like Syria before it, is not just one of external meddling but of internal decay. The National Oil Corporation, Libya’s economic lifeline, has become a pawn in factional disputes. Governance has disintegrated into kleptocracy, creating a vacuum where foreign actors like Russia thrive. Strengthening Libya’s institutions—ensuring accountability, restoring sovereignty, and fostering inclusive political frameworks—is the West’s only viable countermeasure.

That said, Haftar, like Assad, is a precarious foundation for empire-building. The more Moscow invests in him, the more it risks repeating the cycle of dependency and collapse that played out in Damascus.

The fall of Assad and the rise of Haftar as Moscow’s new linchpin should serve as a clarion call for Western policymakers. Reacting to crises as they unfold has only left the region more susceptible to exploitation. If the West hopes to counter Russia’s influence, it will have to address the underlying vulnerabilities that make such interventions possible. Libya, like Syria before it, is not just a battlefield for foreign powers but a mirror reflecting the failures of governance and the perils of neglect.

In the grand chessboard of global politics, the pieces are always in motion. But as Moscow shifts its weight from one unstable alliance to another, it risks discovering the limits of a strategy built on proxies and pragmatism. For the West, the lesson is clear: the game isn’t won by reacting to the moves of others—it’s won by reshaping the board.