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The shops in the Syrian town of Hmeimim — hair salons, kebab stalls, a mechanic’s garage — have signs in Russian. But most of them were shuttered on a recent morning.
Soldiers from the nearby Russian air base don’t visit anymore, a cafe owner said.
Ten months after the fall of its ally, the authoritarian president Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s influence is barely visible in Syria. Most of its troops are gone, and the bases and investment projects built up during its decade-long intervention are largely abandoned.
The new president, Ahmed al-Shara, who led the Islamist rebel force that overthrew the Assad regime and upturned Russia’s interests in the region, allowed Moscow to maintain a small footprint in Syria rather than chasing it out completely.
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