Why Putin Has Pulled Russia Out of Syria

Russia has emerged from the Syrian adventure in a stronger role.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a speech during a state awards ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow, on March 10, 2016. Pavel Golovkin/AFP/Getty Images

Back in Sept. 30 2015, when Vladimir Putin unexpectedly announced the deployment of the Russian air force in Syria, the consensus was that this would prove to be a costly mistake. Critics argued that airstrikes alone would not make any tangible difference to the facts on the ground.

The seemingly endless U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State (ISIS) was often cited as proof of this fact—President Barack Obama reiterated this belief in a recent interview to The Atlantic, when he said that Russia had “overextended … They’re bleeding. And their economy has contracted for three years in a row, drastically.”

Russia had 'overextended … They're bleeding. And their economy has contracted for three years in a row, drastically.'

— Barack Obama, president, U.S.