Putin relishing crucial role in Syria, as he did during mission in Ukraine

THE battle of Aleppo may officially have been won by Bashar al-Assad, but it was Moscow – not Damascus – that announced the end of the battle.

Speaking in Tokyo yesterday, Vladimir Putin said he was already working on plans for a “total ceasefire” in Syria with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Turkish counterpart. Mr Putin made clear neither Washington nor the UN would be involved in these talks – cementing his claim to victory and Russia’s displacement of the United States as the crucial power broker in the Middle East.

For Mr Putin, the fall of Aleppo is the latest in a string of military successes notched up over almost three years of constant warfare – since February 2014, when heavily armed troops in unmarked uniforms fanned out across Crimea. In under two weeks Mr Putin declared the peninsula had been “reunified” with Russia.

In summer 2015, the Kremlin charged into the Syrian civil war – even as the war of attrition continues in eastern Ukraine.

For months, Russian foreign policy experts have said openly that victory in Aleppo is a prerequisite for Moscow’s central war aim – guaranteeing the survival of the Assad regime and enforcing a favourable political settlement to end the war.

In other words, inflicting a defeat on the rebels so catastrophic that they and their Western and Middle Eastern backers accept peace largely on Moscow’s and Damascus’ terms.

The problem with this plan is that Russia and its Iranian and Syrian allies do not necessarily agree on what that settlement should look like.

Experts in Moscow say one likely outcome could be a de-facto partition of the country with Mr Assad – or a successor acceptable to Moscow.

Some even say – whisper it quietly – that Moscow might accept Mr Assad’s departure as a price for such a settlement. But Mr Assad says he isn’t going anywhere. And he also says he wants to re-establish control over every inch of Syrian territory.

Then there is Iran and its Shia militia allies, who have provided a large proportion of the troops that made the assault on Aleppo possible, but whose religious agenda diverges greatly from Russia’s secular goal of “stability” and a friendly government.

As one influential foreign policy thinker in Moscow puts it, Russia’s plan to force a favourable peace depends on “everyone realising that the war is unwinnable.”

If Mr Putin’s and Mr Erdogan’s efforts to impose a general ceasefire fail, Russia forces will almost certainly get drawn into a Syrian and Iranian assault on Idlib, the largest remaining rebel stronghold. In other words, the fall of Aleppo does not mean the end of this horrific war.

Russia is just emerging from a long recession and war is a cost the country could do without. Nonetheless, there is little sign that Russia is tiring of the conflicts in either Syria or Ukraine. As long as they bring him success, Mr Putin’s wars are likely to continue.