Russia condemns attack, although effect was limited.

Analyst says Kremlin, U.S. understand roles to limit confrontation

MOSCOW — Moscow met the limited U.S.-led airstrikes against Syria before dawn Saturday with plenty of bluster and heated rhetoric, starting with an uncharacteristically quick response from President Vladimir Putin condemning the attack and accusing the United States of aggravating the humanitarian situation.

But there was also a palpable sense of relief.

The sun was barely up before the Defense Ministry pumped out a statement underscoring that none of the thousands of Russian troops garrisoned in Syria had been threatened by the U.S., British and French attack and that none of its air defense systems had been mobilized.

“It looks like both sides were playing according to their prescribed roles and managed to limit the harm from this kind of confrontation,” said Alexander M. Golts, an independent Russian military analyst. “Syria will not be the starting point for some kind of global confrontation.”

The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman Jr., released a statement confirming that the two sides had taken steps before the assault to make sure they stayed out of each other’s way.

Of course, the latest attack binds Russia more closely than ever to President Bashar Assad of Syria. The fact that there was no immediate Russian reaction to President Donald Trump’s scathing remarks about that alliance suggested that the Kremlin has accepted the costs involved.

Assad has become something of a “human shield” limiting Russia’s options, noted Vladimir Frolov, an independent foreign affairs analyst and columnist for Republic.ru, “but it was a choice that Moscow made.”

Putin often waits for days before weighing in on an international crisis, so his issuing a statement within hours of the attack indicated that the Kremlin considered it a critical situation.

Putin called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the attack. Other than that, however, he limited himself to repeating Russian claims that no chemical attack had taken place to warrant the onslaught and that Washington was only worsening a dire humanitarian crisis.

“Russia condemns in the strongest possible terms the attack against Syria, where Russian military personnel are assisting the legitimate government in its counterterrorism efforts,” Putin said. “Through its actions, the U.S. makes the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in Syria even worse and brings suffering to civilians.”

In the weeks before the attack, Moscow issued repeated warnings that the Kremlin would “take retaliatory measures.” The general hinged his warning on the important caveat that Russia would attack missiles and the platforms from which they were launched only in the event that Russian military personnel were placed in danger.

The attack was barely over before the Defense Ministry rushed out its statement stressing that its two main installations in Syria — the air base at Hmeimim and the naval base at Tartus — had not been threatened.

Lt. Gen. Sergei F. Rudskoi, head of the military’s operations department, said that no cruise missiles fired during the attack entered the Russian air-defense zones and repeated the Russian assertion that the attack had nothing to do with chemical weapons.

In one sign of the lack of urgency regarding Syria, the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, put out a statement saying it would discuss the airstrikes “next week.”

At home, of course, the bluster will continue. “For the domestic audience, everything will be covered by tough statements,” said Golts, noting that few in Russia will complain that the Kremlin did not follow through on its threats to attack the U.S. military assets in the region.

Putin has twin goals in Syria. First, he is staunchly opposed to regime change fostered by outsiders of the kind that brought chaos to Iraq and Libya.

Second, he sees Syria as leverage to restore Moscow not only to its role as a power broker in the Middle East, but to the status of world policeman that it shared with the U.S. in Soviet days. The fact that Trump has started to criticize him and Russia more openly for allying with Assad has yet to dent those hopes.

Putin will accept limited strikes against Syria that do not indicate a sustained U.S. effort to help the opposition, said Frolov, and would avoid engaging Trump on the rest.

“The Kremlin is still hoping for a summit with Trump, so it will largely ignore his comments about Putin,” Frolov said. “There is still some residual hope that a good personal meeting may turn things around.”

“Russia condemns … the attack against Syria, where Russian military personnel are assisting the legitimate government in its counterterrorism efforts.” Russian President Vladimir Putin