The Russian military leased Hmeimim airbase in western Syria’s coastal Latakia province faced its deadliest attack since the December 2024 fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on May 20. While much remains unclear about this particular attack, it has aptly demonstrated the increasingly vulnerable position of Russia’s sole airbase in the Middle East.

On Tuesday, May 20, militants of unknown affiliation attacked Hmeimim, leaving at least two soldiers and two of the attacking militants dead. It’s unclear if the soldiers were Russian personnel or security forces of the incumbent Syrian Transitional Government in Damascus.

Kyle Orton, an independent Middle East analyst, said the details of the attack remain “very murky,” although there are some possible clues as to what exactly happened.

“Russian military bloggers on Telegram admit that the Russians suffered casualties but did not say how many,” Orton told me.

“Some social media reports from Syria suggest as many as five Russian soldiers were killed; it is impossible to say,” he said. “Likewise, we do not really know how many attackers were killed; one claim that has spread around is that it was four.”

“What is clear is that the attackers were jihadists, and at least some of them were foreign.”

Orton noted that the alleged kunya, a title given to an adult derived from the name of their eldest first-born child, of one of the Syrians killed was Abu Bakr al-Safarani. Abu Jihad al-Masri was allegedly the name of another attacker reportedly killed and was believed to have been an Egyptian.

“As to what actually happened, we are again rather in the dark,” Orton said. “I have seen estimates of the size of the attack team that range from eight to 20; both could be (probably are) wrong, but it does seem it was a small team.”

“The martyrdom notices for the jihadists claim they were inghimasi, that is, shock troops who break through enemy lines and kill as many people as they can until they are killed,” he added. “While this seems to be true, there are conflicting reports about whether the attackers actually got into the base.”

Russia first deployed military personnel, fighter-bomber jets, and air defenses at Hmeimim in 2015 during the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime. Its warplanes relentlessly bombed Syrian cities and opposition-held urban areas in support of Assad, including Aleppo and Idlib. However, at the end of last year, the Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham burst out of its Idlib stronghold and, in coordination with other groups, swiftly advanced on the capital Damascus. Assad promptly fled to his new life in exile in Moscow.

HTS dissolved itself into the new Syrian Transitional Government headed by its former leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani during his militia leader years. Moscow scrambled to forge new relations with the leader whose forces it had bombed for almost a decade in hopes of retaining at least some access to Hmeimim and the Tartus naval base. Shortly after Assad’s fall, Russia withdrew its strategic S-400 air defense missile systems and other heavy equipment from its Syria airbase.

Today, its presence in western Syria is a mere shadow of its former self and a standing symbol of how Russia’s days as a kingmaker in the country have come and gone. In March, Islamist groups descended on Latakia near Hmeimim. They massacred hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians from the province’s Alawite minority, from which the Assad family and members of the former regime originated. While several civilians sought refuge in Hmeimim, there was nothing Russian forces could do to influence or shape events outside the base’s perimeter, which STG forces have guarded since December. That incident demonstrated how Russia’s continued presence remains at the whim of the new powers in Damascus.

Orton noted that some posts celebrating the attack on Hmeimim dubbed the attackers “Red Bands,” a name previously used by HTS special forces. Whether that name is in reference to those officially disbanded forces or borrowed by an entirely different group also remains unclear.

“What seems consistent in the reporting is that the attackers were part of a group whose leadership is nominally under the control of al-Sharaa’s Ministry of Defense,” Orton said.

“There is an obvious political interest for Al-Sharaa and his supporters to stick to the narrative that this was a group of radicals who defied their MoD-loyal leaders to avoid there being any official link between this attack and the current Syrian government.”

However, even if that proved accurate, he pointed out that would underline how “distinctly incomplete” Sharaa’s integration of former Islamist groups has been and the “dismal resulting security situation” in the country where “free-wheeling Islamist militias roam the land.”

There is likely no shortage of factions or wannabe militias in Syria who want revenge on Russia for its post-2015 actions in Syria.

“There is an enormous amount of anger against the Russians in Syria—obviously among the (mostly Sunni) pro-revolution sections of the population because of the Kremlin’s role in supporting Assad’s atrocities against them,” Orton said. “But even the (mostly Alawite) pro-Assad sections of the population have grievances due to the perception Moscow did not do enough at the end and let Assad fall.”

“In some ways, the question is why Russian facilities have not been attacked before now,” he added. “One answer is that Al-Sharaa decided against such things—indeed, decided to enter negotiations that might allow Russia to keep Tartus and Hmeimim.”

Undoubtedly aware of the newfound vulnerability of Hmeimim and Tartus after Assad’s sudden fall, Moscow knew it needed to buy time to at least draw down forces and equipment from these bases now that they had become vulnerable to any potential attacks authorized by Sharaa.

If ordered to do so eventually, Russia would likely want to withdraw from these two strategic bases orderly. Moscow undoubtedly would welcome a coordinated and orderly and somewhat dignified withdrawal over a chaotic and dangerous one like the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Orton personally observed Hmeimim on a trip across Syria this March, mere days before the massacres in Latakia in the Russian base’s vicinity.

“My impression in visiting Hmeimim was that it is basically defenseless,” Orton said. “This was certainly the view of the HTS militiamen on the gates at Hmeimim, who said the Russians were in a ‘prison’—albeit quite an open one, where HTS escorts them to Tartus three to five times a week to get supplies—and felt sure that if an order came through from Damascus to take over the base, that could be accomplished in short order.”

“One of the outstanding questions about the May 20 attack—which will solve a lot of the mysteries around it, including whether the attackers managed to infiltrate the base—is whether the HTS guards stood firm or stood aside.”