Russian Military Involvement in Syria 2015-2024: The Cost to Russia

Syria has, for decades, been a strategically significant outpost in both the Middle East and the Mediterranean for Russia. The port of Tartus and the Khmeimim air base provided Russia with access to Africa and the broader region.¹ It was then of little surprise that in 2015, when the rule of Bashar al-Assad became under serious threat, that the Russian armed forces became involved directly. Over the following years, the Assad regime’s brutal grip on power was stabilized and the Syrian Arab Army managed to confine the rebel forces in the northwestern area around Idlib, before a ceasefire was agreed upon in 2020.

In late November 2024, the Syrian rebel forces led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched a well-organized and powerful attack, first in the direction of Aleppo, and later south – in the direction of Hama and Homs. On December 8, 2024, Bashar al-Assad fled the country for Moscow, and the 53 years of Assad family regime ended.

During these events, the Russian forces continued to fly on bombing missions, hitting hospitals and civilian areas.^{2 3} When their client regime fell, the Russian forces in Syria found themselves in a complicated situation. While the dust still settles, and it is as yet unclear if or at what strength Russia will keep control over its bases in Syria, now is an appropriate time to review the losses Russia has sustained during its 9-year campaign. These losses can be divided into three groups: loss of personnel, loss of equipment, and economic losses.

Personnel Losses

According to the Russian service of the BBC, Russia has suffered at least 543 casualties during its Syrian campaign.⁴ The journalists do not share the names of all the casualties, but they offer a breakdown by rank, service, and, in some cases, specialization. In our research, we managed to find 537 names in public sources. This allows us to make a comparison between  personnel available in public sources and the casualty count of the BBC.

The BBC report identified 197 deceased Russian soldiers who at the time of their death had been employed by the Russian Ministry of Defense or related governmental security institutions. In some cases, it is unclear why the BBC have decided to omit high-ranked officers. For instance, the death of Lieutenant General Valeriy Grigoryevich Asapov was both widely publicized and acknowledged by Russian government-affiliated media outlets. He was killed near Deir ez-Zor on September 23, 2017 and served as chief officer to a group of Russian military advisers in Syria. He was reportedly the commanding officer (or the chief of staff) to the 5th Volunteer Assault Corps of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

Two Russian Major Generals have been killed in Syria. On March 6, 2018, an Antonov An-26 aircraft carrying Vladimir Veniaminovich Yeremeyev, among others, crashed at Khmeimim Air Base. Yeremeyev served as the Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for Control and Supervisory Activities of the Russian Ministry of Defense. On August 18, 2020, Vyacheslav Vladimirovich Gladkikh was killed near Deir ez-Zor. As with Asapov, Gladkikh was sent to Syria as a military advisor. He last held the position of Chief of Staff of 36th Combined Arms Army.

If the reason for non-inclusion of Asapov and Gladkikh in the BBC statistics is the technicality that they were military advisors to the SAA, then a number of other high-ranked officers might have also been omitted. Some of those mentioned as military advisers include:

• Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Ivanovich Cheremisin, killed on February 1, 2016
• Lieutenant Colonel Sergey Aleksandrovich Senin, killed on February 16, 2017
• Lieutenant Colonel Aleksey Mikhailovich Buchelnikov, killed on May 2, 2017
• Major Sergey Valentinovich Bordov, killed on April 18, 2017
• Captain Nikolay Yuryevich Afanasov, killed on July 10, 2017

However, it appears that a significant percentage of the non-aviation specialist senior officers have served in some capacity as military advisers or in close cooperation with the SAA. Thus, if this is the deciding factor for exclusion, the BBC’s list of casualties might indeed not cover multiple high-ranked Russian officers.

A small number of navy-ranked officers have been killed. Their ranks in table 1 correspond to the officer ranks in other Russian armed forces in the following manner:

Captain 1st Rank = Colonel

Captain 2nd Rank = Lieutenant Colonel

Captain 3rd Rank = Major

It is unclear if these cases have been counted into the total figure the BBC report.

In terms of casualties among specialists, such as military pilots and navigators, special forces, and intelligence service operatives, the BBC claims the following:

• More than 20 pilots and navigators
• 7 officers of the FSB
• 15 special forces

The definition of “special forces” is not clarified, and several branches of the Russian military potentially qualify as such, so we will not comment further on these numbers.

In the case of military pilots and navigators, we can track the incidents that have resulted in casualties in table 2.

This makes a total of 13 pilots, 10 navigators, and 19 crew members.

We can track down mentions in public sources of 10 FSB officers killed in Syria, shown in table 3 below.

The single deadliest event for a Russian force in Syria was the Battle of Khasham, which took place on February 7, 2018.⁵ According to the Security Services of Ukraine (SSU), a total of 82 mercenaries from Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner were killed in that engagement. The SSU initially shared a list of 50 names,⁶ later adding 8 more names to this list,⁷ before a final version with 66 names was released.⁸ The BBC claim that 67 mercenaries were killed on the day itself, and 13 more died in the subsequent days and weeks of wounds sustained during the battle. We have been able to determine from public sources the names of the 66 mercenaries who died on February 7, 2018, and the names of 10 more who have died later.

The second deadliest event was the mentioned crash of an Antonov An-26 aircraft. Initially 33 crew members and passengers were reported killed in the accident. Later that number was revised up to 39. All people on board were military personnel.

A third important event took place on September 17, 2018 when an Ilyushin Il-20M surveillance aircraft crashed with all 15 (initially reported 14) military personnel on board reportedly killed. This highly specialized aircraft requires a crew of 13 people. The total list of casualties by rank is provided in table 6.

Another event directly related to the Russian deployment in Syria took place on December 25, 2016. A passenger aircraft, a Tupolev Tu-154B-2, operated by the Russian Ministry of Defense and traveling to Syria, crashed in the Black Sea shortly after departing from Sochi. The aircraft carried 92 people on board, all of whom died in the crash. At least 65 of the passengers belonged to the military choir Aleksandrov Ensemble, including Lieutenant General Valeriy Mikhailovich Khalilov.

Eight of the people on board were reportedly a part of the 223rd Flight Squadron. However, this aircraft required only 4 crew members; the functions of the other 4 individuals onboard are unclear. It is possible that they were being transported to Syria as part of a personnel rotation. For instance, Colonel Andrey Yuryevich Ivanov participated in the military operation in Syria in 2015 and 2016. The full list of military personnel on board, excluding Khalilov, is provided in table 7 below.

Tracking down the names of the Wagner mercenaries killed in Syria from public sources is more complicated. Official acknowledgements of their deaths are rare and most confirmations have been made as a result of social media posts of relatives. These posts are most of the time long gone, but some platforms, such as the Ukrainian Myrotvorets Center, have saved much of the information.⁹ We were able to find information about the deaths of 329 PMC Wagner mercenaries, and 2 mercenaries from PMC Shchit (later Redut). According to the BBC investigation, 346 mercenaries were killed in Syria.

According to the SSU, at least 67 mercenaries died between October 2015 and September 2017. The SSU provided a detailed breakdown by geographical location of the corresponding confirmed casualties, which can be seen in image 3.¹⁰

In October 2017, Reuters released research related to deaths of Russian citizens in Syria. A death certificate issued by the Russian embassy in the country on October 4, 2017 had the document number 131. The news agency then assumed that at least 131 Russian citizens must have died that year in Syria. With no mentions of any serious civilian incidents, this meant the vast majority of these deaths would have been the result of military clashes.¹¹ In 2018, the BBC managed to make an interesting connection in relation to this. They found a death certificate issued on September 7, 2017 featuring document number 77.¹² From open sources, we have also been able to find death certificates which were assigned the numbers 9, 85, 135.¹³ All of these death certificates were issued to PMC Wagner mercenaries. Based on these documents, we can determine the likely number of military deaths within this period and compare that number to the number of known deaths.

In some cases we have been unable to determine the names of all the casualties in every given incident. For instance, on August 1, 2016, a Mi-8AMTSh helicopter was shot down near Idlib. The three members of the crew have been identified (see table 2). The Kremlin confirmed that two more military officers were on board at the time and died. The date coincides with the date of death of Colonel Evegeniy Gennadyevich Velev, seen engraved on a memorial in Kaliningrad.¹⁴ It is impossible to confirm if he was one of those two officers. We have also not been able to determine who the other officer might have been.

There have been unconfirmed reports of at least 5 Russian soldiers who were killed in Syria during the successful attack on Aleppo in late November 2024. These reports have not been included in the total count.

Table 8 shows the number of deaths per year. The first military death occurred on September 22, 2015, and the last one on October 12, 2024. The year of death is determined in 525 cases.

Equipment Losses

At the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Syria was rumoured to have had one of the numerically largest land forces in the Middle East, due, in the main, to its legacy as a key ally to the Soviet Union. Figures pertaining to heavy military equipment offered by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in the 2011 edition of The Military Balance are presented in table 9.¹⁵

Numerous observers have suggested that these numbers be taken with at least a grain of salt. While The Military Balance is one of the longest running reference sources on the total strength of global armed forces, with the increasing accessibility  of commercial satellite imagery to wider audiences, many of their estimations have been questioned. For instance, there appears to be a substantial difference between the number of main battle tanks, and to a lesser extent artillery pieces, reported by the IISS in the Russian army’s active service and in storage, and the units visible in satellite images plus potentially found in covered storage facilities.¹⁶

A team at Bellingcat have been keeping track of SAA equipment losses through visual confirmations. While they do not publish a full list of such losses, the list of selected types of equipment is shown in table 10.¹⁷

It has to be stressed that these are confirmed losses, based on visual evidence only.

In order to compensate for the enormous losses suffered by one of its key allies, Russia was delivering significant amounts of military equipment to the SAA, beginning around 2013. In most cases such deliveries were not disclosed publicly. Certain deliveries could be tracked via leaked images, public and private announcements.

The earliest deliveries of main battle tanks appear to have included various modifications of the T-90. According to various sources, a batch of 40 units of T-90 obr. 1992 and/or T-90A were delivered to the SAA between 2015 and 2017.^{18 19} The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database lists 10 (?) T-90S exported by Russia to Syria in 2017.²⁰ 

Some quantities of T-62M were reactivated from Russian long-term storage and sent to Syria in or before 2017.^{21 22 23} The SIPRI database includes 100 (?) units of T-62 delivered in 2019. In 2020, a batch of T-62MV appears to have been delivered,²⁴ followed by dozens of T-72 in 2023.²⁵

In terms of other armoured vehicles, 30 units of BTR-80 were delivered in late 2013 or early 2014.²⁶ This was followed by some deliveries of BTR-82A in or before 2015.²⁷ Some units of BTR-70M,²⁸ MT-LBM,²⁹ BMP-1,³⁰ BRM-1K,³¹ BRDM-2MS,³² IMR-2M,³³ BMP-97³⁴ and GAZ-39371³⁵ were also delivered at different times between 2014 and 2022.

The earliest sighting of an artillery or mortar piece in SAA service of Russian origin occurred in 2014 when a 2B9 Vasilek mortar was spotted.³⁶ Thereafter, Russia appears to have delivered various other longer-range towed guns, including 2B14 Podnos,³⁷ D-20, D-74,³⁸ 2A65 Msta-B³⁹, M-30,⁴⁰ and most recently, in late 2023 – at least 8 units of D-30 and 11 units of M-46. Some S-60 anti-air guns were also a part of that last batch of equipment.⁴¹ This is the last major delivery of heavy military equipment that is publicly known. Additionally, in or before 2016, Russia has delivered small numbers of the self-propelled 120mm 2S9 Nona-S mortar.⁴²

The significant quantity of military equipment was underpinned by large amounts of logistics and support equipment. In late 2013 and early 2014, Russia sent to the SAA at least 50 KamAZ trucks, 41 Ural trucks, 13 mobile kitchens, and 5 mine rollers.⁴³ This was followed by several more deliveries of GAZ and UAZ vehicles.⁴⁴

In addition to land force equipment, Russia provided to Assad’s army longer range air defense systems. According to SIPRI, in 2013 approximately 36 launchers of Pantsir-S1, 8 launchers of Buk-M2, and 12 launchers of S-125 Pechora-2M, were transferred. These transfers likely included not just the launchers, but additional specialized equipment such as radars and support vehicles as well. In 2018, 3 units of the more advanced S-300PMU1 were also supplied. SIPRI’s database includes two deliveries of aircraft – 6 units of MiG-29S in 2020, and 4 units of Mi-24P in 2021.

Another clue as to the heavy military equipment Russia might have sent to the SAA is emerging as the rebel groups, led by HTS (in practice, the new governing entity), seize it across the country.⁴⁵ As of December 25, 2024, the former SAA land forces military equipment seized or destroyed in the HTS-led 2024 offensive, and not known to have been available to the SAA before 2011 (refer to table 9), is included in table 11.⁴⁶

In addition to the land-based equipment seized and destroyed, after December 8, 2024, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) began targeting Syrian-based aircraft, surface-to-air missile systems, ships, and ammunition depots.⁴⁷ The equipment destroyed in these air strikes is presented in table 12.

The Soviet and Russian equipment not known to have been present in SAA arsenals before 2011 can reasonably be assumed to have been supplied by Russia after the start of the civil war.

In addition to direct transfers of land-based military equipment, Russia provided aerial support to Assad. Between October 2015 and December 2017, Russian aviation flew on average more than 40 sorties per day.⁶⁵ This led to a number of losses for Russian aviation, stationed primarily but not exclusively at Khmeimim Air Base. The known losses are presented in table 13.

In the Battle of Khasham, the PMC Wagner-led forces suffered significant losses not only in terms of personnel, as covered earlier, but also in terms of equipment. Visually confirmed were the losses of three main battle tanks (T-62MV, T-72M1, T-72AV), two armoured fighting vehicles (both BRDM-2), one anti-air unit (S-60 mounted on a Ural-4320 truck), one artillery piece (M-30), and four trucks and other support vehicles.⁶⁶ It is possible that this does not cover all the equipment losses. One of the mercenaries killed in the US air strikes was a member of a 2S1 Gvozdika artillery squad, while another one was a part of a D-30 artillery squad.

Economic Losses

The economic benefit and loss for Russia from their Syrian campaign between 2015 and 2024 is complicated to gauge accurately. For instance, it is unclear if the Assad regime was paying for all of the equipment and ammunition it was receiving for Russia, or if some of these deliveries occurred in the form of donations. It is also unclear if Assad was covering the costs of Russia’s deployment within the country.

In terms of these costs, the only public acknowledgement on the matter came from Putin in early 2016 when he claimed the Syrian operation had cost Russia $464 million by that time, or approximately $2.5 million per day.⁶⁷ A now-deleted reference by Bloomberg from December 2015, citing government sources, reported the costs at $3.3 million per day.⁶⁸

Several independent estimates have been made thereafter, taking into account the deployed troops and equipment, the use of ammunition, equipment and personnel losses, and other factors.⁶⁹ These cost estimates are summarized in table 14.

The deployment of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov alone might have cost between $116 million and $155 million between October 2016 and February 2017.⁷⁴

The total market value of arms transfers of Russia to Syria between 2011 and 2020 is estimated at $1.7 billion. However, this estimate uses SIPRI data in relation to arms transfers. As seen in the section titled “Equipment Losses” above, this is unlikely to illustrate the full extent of these transfers.⁷⁵

The Russian bases in Syria have had a major impact not only on Russia’s finances, but also its ability to project power in the Middle East and Africa.⁷⁶ The port of Tartus has likely been used for smuggling food and other goods stolen from occupied Ukrainian territories, and Khmeimim air base near Latakia has been used as a transfer point for deployments and transfers to various countries in Africa.^{77 78} While it is still unclear if Russia will lose control over these bases fully, several flights have already been tracked transporting materiel to Libya’s Khadim air base, as a transit route toward Mali.⁷⁹ Large quantities of specialized equipment have already been transferred from Syria to Libya.⁸⁰

Ships with grain originating from the occupied parts of Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast had been departing from Sevastopol and made their way to the port of Tartus in Syria. The economic benefit Russia might have derived from the transportation and potential sale of illegally seized foodstuffs is difficult to estimate. The total market value of the exported goods might be between a lower estimate of $800 million and as high as $6.4 billion in 2022 and 2023 alone.⁸¹ A detailed breakdown by Texty showed $4.2 billion in wheat, sunflower, and maize exported in 2022, and $2.3 billion in 2023.⁸²

Cargo aircraft, suspected of delivering weapons to Russia-friendly regimes in Africa, were tracked on multiple occasions. Estimating the exact value, content, and sources of financing the cargo from public sources is impossible. Most recently, on October 21, 2024, an Ilyushin Il-76T aircraft was reportedly shot down over Sudan with two Russian citizens on board.⁸³ Viktor Ivanovich Granov, who was the likely pilot of the aircraft, previously worked as a test pilot under 929th State Flight Test Center of the Russian ministry of defense and before allegedly retiring and moving to South Africa. Another Il-76 cargo aircraft was recently spotted landing in Faya-Largeau, Chad.⁸⁴

Gold and other resources obtained by PMC Wagner and other Russian paramilitary organizations through their operations in Africa have reportedly brought significant amounts of direct revenue for Russia. These operations were possible mainly because of the strategic location of Syria, allowing for deployments to take place via transfers and refueling from mainland Russia via Latakia. A December 2023 report showed that Wagner might have extracted the equivalent of over $2.5 billion in gold from several countries in Africa, including the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Mali.⁸⁵

Overall, Russia has expended significant financial and military resources in order to maintain Bashar al-Assad in power during 13 years of civil war in Syria. Most of the direct help was provided after Russia joined the conflict directly in the second half of 2015. The loss of a Russia-friendly Syrian government has been described as a strategic defeat by multiple observers. Syria served as a gateway for Russia to exert control over and to provide support to other regimes in the region. Russia has direct military presence in Libya, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, and it has used port Sudan for military logistics. These deployments have been relying heavily on Syria as a transit point between mainland Russia and Africa.⁸⁶ Whether Russia is able to sustain its previous level of operations on the continent by relocating its logistics hubs in Libya remains to be seen.

In addition to the very direct implications for Russia from the fall of Assad’s regime, some more indirect consequences have to be considered in more detail. They are beyond the scope of this report and will only be outlined briefly. Geopolitically, the image Russia has been building for itself as a major military and economic powerhouse has suffered since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but it is taking another major blow with the failure in Syria.⁸⁷ 

Israel is one of the countries traditionally allied to “the West,” but it has been reluctant to openly support Ukraine, one of the reasons being its special relationship with Russia regarding air defense systems deployed in Syria. With the fall of Assad this calculation may change and Israel may be more likely to consider greater military support for Ukraine.⁸⁸ 

The Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline, considered one of the main reasons for the Russian involvement in Syria, may move forward, as a more pro-Turkish government is expected to take over. This will have major long-term implications for Russia’s ability to project power through fossil fuels in Europe, even if relations are normalized after the eventual end of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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