Russia Urges Its Citizens to Leave Syria as Terrorists Advance

An anti-government fighter fires into the air in a street in Aleppo, Syria, on Nov. 30, 2024. Bakr Alkasem/AFP via Getty Images

Russia has warned its citizens that they should consider leaving Syria as terrorist forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad make swift and significant advances, threatening to take control of the strategic city of Homs and push toward the capital of Damascus, the seat of Assad’s power.

The warning, issued on Dec. 6 by Russia’s embassy in Damascus, cites a difficult situation in Syria and notes that Russian citizens can leave the country on commercial flights.

“In the light of the difficult military and political situation in Syria, the Russian Embassy in Damascus reminds Russian citizens living in the SAR of the possibility of leaving the country using commercial flights through operating airports,” reads the statement posted on Dec. 6 on the Russian' embassy’s Telegram channel.

Russia, a key backer of Assad’s government, has been using air strikes to target the rebel forces led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group, or HTS. The terrorists have made rapid territorial gains, including the capture of Aleppo and Hama. The Syrian military said Friday that both its warplanes and Russian ones have hit terrorists to the north and south of Hama, killing dozens of them.

The latest reports indicate that the terrorists are now closing in on Homs, the third largest in Syria, prompting thousands to flee. If Assad’s military loses Homs, it could be a crippling blow as the city lies along a key route connecting Damascus with Assad regime strongholds Latakia and Tartus on the coast. The rebel forces have vowed to march on Damascus.

“The battle of Homs is the mother of all battles and will decide who will rule Syria,” said Rami Abdulrahman, chief of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor.

Assad’s forces do not appear to have established a defensive line between Hama and the Orontes River that would slow the terrorists’ march toward Homs, according to Critical Threats, a project of the American Enterprise Institute. If the rebel forces succeed in the offensive on Homs, it would cut off Damascus from the coast, a longtime stronghold of Assad and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base.

“The collapse of Assad’s forces will be difficult for Russia to reverse,” Brian Carter, an analyst at Critical Threats, wrote in a post on X. “Iran has said it will send drones and missiles, but drones and missiles don’t retake ground. People do.”

The terrorists’ rapid advances have caught the region off guard, energizing other opponents of Assad’s regime. In a video statement released Friday, HTS-led rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghany called on senior Syrian military officers to defect.

While some Syrians have welcomed the insurgence, others are anxious about how the terrorists would rule.

“There is clearly still militant and radical elements inside the group, but we still don’t know how radical Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham is today,” said analyst Ibrahim Al-Assil of the Middle East Institute.

A U.S.-designated terrorist organization, HTS, which broke away from Al-Qaeda in 2016, has spent years trying to moderate its image on the international stage. The jihadi group presents itself as a viable alternative to Assad’s 54-year authoritarian rule.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he planned to discuss the situation in Syria with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts during a meeting Friday in Qatar.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.