Reuters: Russia withdraws troops from airport in Syria, based there for more than five years

Russia withdraws its troops from the Qamishli airport in northeastern Syria. About reports Reuters, citing five unnamed Syrian interlocutors.

The Damascus government is trying to regain control of this territory from Kurdish forces. Russian troops have been stationed at the airport since 2019, but it was a relatively small number of personnel compared to the air base and naval base on Syria's Mediterranean coast.

Two interlocutors said that Russia began a gradual withdrawal of troops from the Syrian airport last week. According to one source, part of the forces will be moved to the Russian Hmeymim airbase in western Syria, while the other part will return to Russia.

Another interlocutor in the Syrian security services on the country's western coast reported that Russian military vehicles and heavy weapons were transported from Kamishli airport to the Hmeymim military airfield in two days.

In mid-January, the Russian side, citing unnamed interlocutors in Syria, reported that the government of the country could allegedly ask Russian troops to leave the base after the Kurds were ousted, as "they (Russians) have nothing to do there."

on January 26, a Reuters journalist saw two planes with Russian insignia at Kamyshli airport.

• In July 2025, Ukrainian military intelligence reported LIGA.netthat after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Russian Federation kept a limited amount of equipment in the country, as the Kremlin tries to maintain its ability to influence the further course of events in the Middle East and Africa.
• In November, Bloomberg reported that Russian planes fly again to a military air base in Syria.
• In November, Reuters reported that the United States was preparing to deploy their forces at an air base in Damascus.