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You can’t tell who’s who in the renewed Syrian civil war without a scorecard, but so far, the big loser might be Russia. Before we get to Vlad Putin’s Middle East headache, enjoy a quick rundown of who’s doing what to whom — and, please, keep in mind that the situation is fluid—and bloody. 

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The civil war was mostly quiet until Saturday when rebels striking from the northwest took the strategic city of Aleppo. The advance was so swift that rebels captured everything from artillery to tanks to light attack jets. Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite forces moved in from the east to aid the regime. 

With an assist from Russian airpower, Bashar al-Assad put together a defensive line south of fallen Aleppo at Hama. Should Hama fall, that would threaten Assad’s control of Tartus — and Russia’s only naval base in the Med. If rebels managed to take and hold Tartus, that would put a big crimp in Russia’s ability to support Assad and end Moscow’s power projection in the Mediterranean.

Here’s the scorecard, kept as brief as possible:

The civil war effectively partitioned the country. ISIS remnants still control minor parts of eastern Syria, while various Kurdish militias control the northeast.

In Syria’s north, Turkey established a buffer zone to help control the flow of “migrants” into their country. Turkey also has a longstanding Kurdish problem and has focused on suppressing Kurdish autonomy in northern and eastern Syria. A NATO ally, Turkey supports Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former Al-Qaeda affiliate from Idlib in the northwest — nice, eh?

Bashar Assad’s regime controls the largest part, including major cities like Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, and Hama. Well, Assad controlled Aleppo until Saturday, and control of Hama is contested as I write this. 

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The Assad regime is effectively a Russian client state in exchange for military bases, particularly Russian access to the port at Tartus. Assad also enjoys material and financial support from Iran, which uses Syria as a corridor to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Even while holding Tartus, ISW reports that Assad “may struggle to rally the same support from the Axis of Resistance and Russia that they previously provided, which will impede any pro-regime counteroffensives.” Russia’s ongoing assaults in eastern Ukraine are finally showing results, but at great cost. The Russian army is losing soldiers almost as quickly as they can be replaced and, on some days, more quickly. “Russia’s war economy is heading toward an impasse,” Foreign Policy reported two weeks ago, with “economic strains brought on by both war and sanctions [becoming] increasingly apparent.”

The Russian economy isn’t about to collapse, as some would have you believe, but war production is bumping up against industrial and manpower limits. 

The U.S. has used the rebels’ weekend festivities as an opportunity to send in A-10 Warthogs against moving columns of Iran-backed groups.

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Let’s hear it for the ‘Hog.

If a winner emerges from all of this chaos, it could be Turkey. It’s the forces they support that took Aleppo and that threaten Hama and Tartus. The better Turkey’s HTS pals perform, the worse it is for Russia. The U.S. may have — inadvertantly? on purpose? — helped HTS and Turkey along with our Air Force strikes against Iran’s proxies.

What does it all mean?

As RAND’s Michael Bohnert put it, “From a foreign perspective,” having groups of rebels in charge would be “no better” than Assad. “For locals and especially minorities, way worse.” So, if you’re looking for a column telling you which side to root for, you’ll have to find that elsewhere.

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